


Cha-Cha-Cha!

by Ebhenah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam discussed, Allura mentioned, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dancing, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, PINING KEITH, Post-Canon, Shiro/Curtis wedding, Thirsty Keith, Vers Keith, mlm sex, not so oblivious lance, oblivious keith, responsible alcohol use, vers Lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: Shiro's wedding is looming and Keith has put off learning the choreographed dance for the reception for so long that he's been put under the tutelage of Lance. The dance itself isn't the problem so much as the prolonged close contact with Lance during the lessons, and the way he somehow ends up agreeing to running other wedding-related errands with his former teammate. The crush he's been harboring for years has definitely become a lot more and his self-control has never been great when it came to Lance. If he didn't love Shiro like a brother, he'd have bailed on this whole wedding thing ages ago. As it stands, all he can do is hope he doesn't embarrass himself and the grooms when it comes time to do this quiznaking dance... and pray he doesn't say or do something really, really dumb to Lance before the wedding even happens.Something like... ending up in Lance's bed after the rehearsal dinner.Oops…
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), background Shiro/Curtis - Relationship, background veronica/acxa - Relationship
Comments: 36
Kudos: 288
Collections: The Klance Pinefest Fics





	Cha-Cha-Cha!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 Klance Pinefest with [art](https://daifha.tumblr.com/post/628169155439476737/here-are-my-pieces-for-the-klancepinefest-2020-i) by the wonderful [Daifha](https://daifha.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Special thanks to my betas!

“No, not like that,” Lance chuckled, the sound rolling down Keith’s body like an actual caress and making his brain short out. “Remember what we talked about? You’re leading. You need to guide me where to go, not wait for me to do it.”

“This is so stupid,” he grumbled, choosing to focus on his irritation rather than how warm and solid and wonderful Lance’s hands felt; one resting lightly on Keith’s shoulder, the other curling around his own hand. “Why are we doing this again?”

“You promised Shiro you’d learn how to dance before his wedding- which is _next week,_ Keith.”

“I know how to dance. I don’t understand why we have to learn a specific dance!” Or how he ended up with Lance as an instructor, for that matter.

“Because that’s what he wants- and let’s be honest, here… he’s kind of a groom-zilla,” Lance flashed him a playful smile and Keith’s stomach dropped like he just stepped off a high dive. “So, let’s start again, yeah?”

“Ugh, _fine_!” Irritated with himself, Keith fixed his stance, adjusted his footing and listened to the music, watching Lance nod out the beat for him. At the cue for him to start moving, Lance winked and once again, he got flustered and forgot what he was doing. So, he started off on the wrong foot, stumbling over Lance’s feet. “Sorry! Sorry… I suck.”

“You don’t suck, you’re learning. You’ll get it. You want me to go over the steps again?” He was being so kind, and patient, and encouraging. This would be so much better for Keith’s sanity if he was grumpy or churlish or impatient, but no- Lance was a great teacher. 

“No, I know _what_ to do, I just can’t get my body to do that.” He was so frustrated, because it should be easy. Lance certainly made it _look_ easy! 

“Okay, I’ll run through the routine again. You just watch me. It’ll help.”

“Lance, I don’t need to watch you do the routine!” That was the last thing he needed, actually. It would _not_ help for him to watch Lance dance the Cha Cha, with his stupidly long legs, and how he could glide over the floor. Keith knew he’d be riveted by the way Lance let his eyes drift halfway shut because he loved dancing so much, the snap and sway of those hips, the little flourishes he added without thought. He knew he’d be completely entranced- and retain absolutely none of the information he was supposed to. 

But it was too late. Lance was already peeling away from him and restarting the music at the beginning. “Don’t worry about the feet,” he said cheerfully, pointing to a little bench for Keith to sit on. Unable to muster the willpower to argue, Keith sat. Lance’s smile got brighter somehow, “watch the hips- if you can get the hip movements down, the feet will follow- I promise!”

_’Watch the hips’_ !?! Dear God, kill him now. Or, maybe he should just kill Shiro for coming up with this plan in the first place- both the big dance number and having Lance teach it to him. Because there was no way he was surviving much more of this… not with Lance doing things like telling him to watch his hips, and making _that face_ when he danced, and just… touching him so much- moving his body around to make sure he was positioned properly, tipping his chin up when he kept trying to look down at his feet, holding his hand and touching his shoulder during the actual dancing. Just… so much touching. 

It was like death by a thousand sexy little cuts. 

Torture.

“One, two, cha-cha-cha,” Lance counted out, and even if he hadn’t specifically told Keith to watch his hips, that’s where he would have been looking. That’s where the show was, after all. Those hips. Roll, roll, snap-snap-snap. Moving toward him on something called ‘walking steps’ and making his mouth go dry. Backing away again and making him want to chase after him. “See? Simple. Side, side, cha-cha-cha… and turn…”

Oh.

Oh no.

This was so much worse. Those workout clothes did something magical to Lance’s butt. Roll, roll, snap-snap-snap. 

“You watching what I’m doing?” Lance asked over his shoulder, not missing a beat.

“Mmhmm.” Shit! That was dangerously close to a whimper. He cleared his throat, shifting on his seat, “I’m watching.”

“Good! One, two, cha-cha-cha. Back, back, cha-cha-cha. Think you got it?”

At this point he was pretty convinced that whoever had come up with this dance in the first place was some kind of demon. The way Lance was moving, and how _good_ he looked doing it was positively unholy. Wait. Shit. That had been a question. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool! Come on, stand in front of me.”

Hold on. What was happening now? He walked over to Lance. “Like this?”

“Yeah. I think I rushed you before, so let’s try this.” He stood behind Keith, both his hands settling on Keith’s hips, warm and strong. “You need to relax, Mullet. Stop being so stiff, it’s all about the hips. That means you actually need to move them.”

“Uhhh…” God, Lance’s hands were warm. How were they so warm? He could feel heat radiating out of each and every line of contact, the thumbs angled low on his back, palms pressing into his hips gently, long fingers wrapping around his sides and touching his hip bones. His mind flashed on some _very different_ activities that would warrant that particular grip on him and once again he completely forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

“Geez!” Lance tsked, “loosen up already!” He shook Keith’s hips playfully, jiggling him back and forth in an effort to get him to relax. He was going to _kill_ Shiro. Dead.

“I get the picture,” he muttered, taking a deep breath and willing himself to relax. It was _not_ easy. Being alone with Lance always put him on edge- so worried about saying or doing something that might give away his feelings. It made him tense up. It made him snap and grumble and just generally turn into an awkward mess. There was no way he was going to learn how to do this from Lance.

He was just going to get comfortable with the idea that he was going to ruin Shiro’s wedding and his best friend would never speak to him again and he might as well move back into his little house in the desert. 

“Don’t make me tickle you,” Lance warned, undoing any progress Keith had made in the whole ‘relaxing’ project. “Oh my God, I wasn’t really going to tickle you, Keith! Would you chill out already?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, feeling his face flush. It was just a stupid dance. So what if it meant time alone with Lance? He’d trained with Lance before. Just because this wasn’t sparring and he was out of his element shouldn’t mean that he turned into a middle schooler with his first crush! It’s not like this whole _thing_ he had for Lance was new. He’d been gone on the guy since the infamous ‘bonding moment’, maybe even a little before. That was years ago. He was a grown ass man who had faced down things a helluva lot scarier than Lance McClain moving to music! He could _do_ this. He made his muscles relax through sheer stubbornness. “Alright, let’s try again. What do I do?”

The hands on his hips shifted and he pointedly ignored the tendrils of fire that the motion sent snaking out through his skin. “Okay, you know _how_ to move your feet, you are just getting snarled up in when and where… so I’m going to do the steps, and I’m going to move your hips and you are going to do the same steps at the same time. So, all you have to do is not fight me, and follow your hips. Got it?”

He was going to die. 

“Got it,” he replied, nodding once.

Shockingly, Lance’s plan worked. With him moving Keith’s hips, Keith naturally stepped where he needed to to keep his balance. The choreography actually started to make a kind of sense instead of looking like some kind of magic he could never dream of replicating. 

Unfortunately… not so shockingly, the close proximity was burning through his ability to stay focused on the task at hand like a wildfire. 

Because, while dancing this way was easier than when he was face to face with Lance, the accidental touches were going to be his absolute undoing. If his timing was off, or they didn’t step the same distance, Lance’s leg brushed the back of his thigh- and that was _not_ a place that he was used to being touched outside of a bedroom, so. Every. Single. Time. it made his brain derail into completely inappropriate directions.

“Much better!” Somehow, he _felt_ Lance step away from him. “Ready to try speeding it up again?”

“I guess,” he managed, really hoping that his cheeks weren’t nearly as red as they felt like they were. 

“Great,” Lance smiled at him and it was really unfair how that lit up those blue eyes and how cheerful and encouraging he was… because his usual tactic for dealing with how infuriatingly attractive Lance was was to focus on how _annoying_ he could be- but that tact was useless at the moment. His fingers itched to touch that face. His lips ached to kiss him, to feel that smile soften and melt into the press of his mouth, yield to the- _Focus_!

He wasn’t sure what he’d missed, but Lance was returning to his spot behind Keith, his graceful hands settling on Keith’s waist again, so he guessed they were doing another run through the music, only faster this time. Lance shook his hips again and he barely pulled himself together enough to glare at him over his shoulder.

“Just checking,” laughed Lance, “don’t want to end up backsliding, right?”

“In less than a minute?”

“You’re not exactly a relaxed kind of guy, Keith,” he teased, “I don’t know how long you take to clench back up.”

“Can we just stay on task?” he sighed. “You said something about speeding this up?”

“Right. Okay, back to the proper tempo. Soooo one, two cha-cha-cha… like that. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He soooo didn’t ‘got it’.

He wasn’t sure what it was that distracted him, but he missed his cue to start moving. Lance had gotten used to him being receptive to even slight pressure change and made the mistake of believing Keith when he’d said he ‘got it’. So, he gave a slight push and just stepped forward.

Which would have been fine, if Keith hadn’t been lost in his own damn hormones and just _not moved_ at all. 

Lance walked right into him, an electric wall of contact from the back of his knees all the way up to his shoulders that froze the breath in his lungs and completely rerouted his blood supply. Face and other body parts flushed and throbbing from the sudden increase in blood flow, Keith squeaked as he was pitched forward by the impact. 

So… of course… _of fucking course_ Lance immedatiely moved to counter that and keep them both from face planting on the dance floor. Those strong, graceful hands left his hips, lightning quick, arms wrapping tight around his waist as Lance yanked Keith _back_.

This… was not good.

Even though it _felt_ really, really good. 

He had no idea how Lance managed to have every single nerve ending in Keith’s body firing off all kinds of ‘hit me with more of the same’ messages to his half-addled brain, but he did. 

“Woah,” he chuckled in Keith’s ear, low and soft and breathy. Which was roughly the moment that Keith started praying in earnest that something would strike him dead on the spot. Because… that voice? Close enough to his ear that he could feel the little huff of air that escaped on the laugh? It sent his brain into overdrive, spinning out all kinds of delicious little scenarios that were not helping the whole blood supply issue in the slightest. “I got you… not going to let you fall. Okay?”

“Mmmhmm,” he managed, nodding helplessly.

“Keith?” Lance whispered, not moving in the slightest. Keith could feel his pulse fluttering under his fingertips… because… ohhh shit… somewhere along the way, he’d grabbed onto Lance’s wrists like some kind of lifeline. 

“Uh?” His body refused to listen to him. It was just… locked up tight, pressed back against Lance, and no matter what he tried to tell it to do… it just… _wouldn’t_.

“I’m just going to step back,” Lance assured him. “Missing the cue isn’t a big deal.”

What?!?! 

Okay, either Lance was the most oblivious fucker to ever walk the Earth… orrr… he was a damned sight kinder than Keith had been giving him credit for being.

Not that he thought that Lance _wasn’t_ kind, he’d known him too long and too well to think that. 

Just… There was absolutely no way that Lance had missed that Keith’s reaction to this whole thing was… completely unrelated to the challenges of learning the Cha Cha, and even an hour ago, Keith would have bet the house on the certainty that if Lance had any inkling how Keith felt about him, he’d make his life miserable with the teasing… and taunting… and over-the-top, insincere flirting.

Instead, he was acting like he had no idea. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

Just a regular day of dance lessons for Keith and Lance. NBD.

“M’okay.” His body seemed to have finally gotten the memo that doing what it was told was a good plan, so Keith relaxed the deathgrip he had on Lance’s wrists and willed himself to shift his body back to standing upright. Like a normal human being. Not practically sitting on Lance’s thighs. As nice as they were (and God, the guy had _amazing_ legs), Keith shouldn’t be perching his ass on them mid-dance lesson. 

Or… you know… _at all_.

Because, as much as he wished otherwise, that’s not the kind of relationship he had with Lance.

At one point, he thought there was… potential. That the sparks of anger and bickering that flew between them might indicate another, more rewarding kind of spark. When Shiro had vanished from Black, Lance had been the only one who had been able to _reach_ him through all that fear and panic and worry. When he’d been struggling as the Black Paladin, fighting the responsibility, drowning in guilt over replacing his friend, it had been Lance who had somehow anchored him and balanced him. 

Then, Shiro had come back and before he even really knew what was happening, Lance was standing in his room talking about leaving Voltron and math and Keith had been listening. He really had… but he’d also been slowly crumbling under the weight of the sudden realization that he’d fallen for Lance. 

Hard.

Lance, who was looking at him with eyes bluer than any sky on any planet Keith had ever seen. So scared and resolute and radiating hurt from every pore as he offered to give up his dream for the sake of the people he cared about. Lance, who’d been the only reason he’d been able to function as any kind of a leader, who had been _chosen_ by the Red Lion instead of just accepted by it. The best shot on the team. The only one who seemed to be able to make every other one of them _better_ just by… existing. Lance, looking at him with such faith and trust and there was no way Keith would be able to live with himself if he let that happen.

And he’d known that he’d fallen hard, and he’d been so scared. 

So, so, so scared… because if he stayed, he just knew that he’d keep falling and… maybe he was right about those sparks and that potential. But, more likely, he’d have to keep watching Lance chasing after a woman who didn’t see what Keith saw. Because, Keith wasn’t the guy that got to have big epic romances. He wasn’t even the guy who got to have warm, quiet _normal_ romances. 

He was the guy who learned one lesson over and over again: Keith Kogane was meant to be alone.

So, deep down, he just knew he’d have to watch Lance get shot down over and over again… and that he was just enough of a terrible person that even though it would kill him to see Lance hurting, part of him would be _happy_ because it meant he wouldn’t have to see Lance and Allura in love with each other.

So, he’d run the fuck away. 

He’d run to the Blade of Marmora, and then to mission after mission after mission… and while he’d been stranded for two years, he’d decided he was done running- only to return to the team just in time to watch Allura finally see what Keith had seen. He’d had front row seats to Allura and Lance falling in love with each other. Front row seats to her sacrifice. Front row seats to his grief. 

And, now?

Finally, Lance was happy again. His eyes didn’t look haunted. His laughter didn’t seem to surprise him anymore. He was content on the farm, and loved working with the kids to spread Allura’s message. He was excited for Shiro’s wedding- even eager to teach Keith this stupid dance… and shit… Lance was talking to him.

“Wow- you really got spooked, huh?” Lance laughed, stretching his arms up over his head. “Tell you what… lets grab a couple of drinks and head outside for like, ten minutes of sunshine and fresh air. Good?”

“Yeah…” he nodded, willing his eyes not to follow the tempting shape of that exposed torso, and not to snag on the way Lance bared his throat when he craned his head back like that. “A break… sounds good…”

It was hot, but there was a breeze and it wasn’t so bad if he stuck to the shade. Despite living most of his life in the desert, Keith had never been a fan of blindingly bright days. Lance, on the other hand, soaked up the sun like he was a plant. Arms out-stretched, eyes closed, face tipped up to the sky he spun slowly. “I’m never going to get bored of being home,” he sighed, “Dorothy Gale was a smart cookie!”

“Who?” he asked before he thought better of it. Because… really, he probably knew exactly who Lance was talking about if he could just get his brain to engage.

“Are you shitting me right now?” Lance asked, one eye cracking one to squint at him. Keith just shrugged. “Dorothy?? You know… ‘there’s no place like home’?? Dorothy and Toto? From the Wizard of Oz?!?!”

“Ohhhhh! Okay, yeah… I know that movie.”

“Movi-” Lance took a deep breath, shaking his head, “of course you’ve only seen the movie. Okay, bud… listen- the movie is… pretty much perfect, but you have to read the book!”

“I… do?” He was confused, Lance was a movie fiend. What was happening right now?

“Yes! It’s a classic of American children’s literature! I can’t believe you’ve never read the Wizard of Oz! I mean, I’d understand if you hadn’t read the others, but I don’t even know how you managed to avoid reading it! It’s everywhere!”

He shrugged, “I dunno… I read… other stuff, I guess. Treasure Island, and Black Beauty, and like the King Arthur stories and stuff. Oh! And my Dad had this book full of these old, obscure fairy tales- the really gruesome ones. I loved that book.”

“Yup… that tracks.” Lance laughed lightly, and it felt like he had a bird caught in his chest fluttering and trying to take flight. “Tell you what- I’ll find you a copy for your birthday. Like, a good one… hardcover with the illustrations. A real book. That’ll be my gift to you. You’ll love it.”

“I already know the story, Lance,” he pointed out.

“No- you know the movie. It’s totally different to read it. Trust me.”

“You don’t have to get me a birthday gift,” he tried. Not that he didn’t want a birthday gift from Lance… just… _this gift_ . It was a book Lance loved, that he wanted to share with Keith. He thought Keith would love it, that they’d have that in common… and it would always remind Keith of this day. The heat and the sun _recharging_ Lance somehow and the dancing and all the _touching_... and it would be too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the book meant more than it did.

Too easy to read into the gift, create subtext that didn’t exist.

Lance shook his head, “yeah. I do. Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, it is a book. Not a car or something. Hardly extravagant.”

“I guess,” he relented, not wanting to push the issue and make the rest of the lesson even more awkward.

“Plus, you got me a gift for my birthday.”

“Oh… yeah.” He kicked at one of the loose pebbles that were scattered through the dust on the asphalt and fought the impulse to sneak a peek at Lance’s face searching for some sign that Keith’s gift was _special_ to him.

“It was a great gift, too,” he said, as if he could read Keith’s mind. 

“It was… nothing. I just, I saw it in a market when I was working and I remembered how much you liked Puig…” Shrugging, he trailed off, not wanting to make a big deal about it.

Even though it was _kind of_ a big deal.

Ezor had given him a hard time about bankrupting himself of spending money for the rest of the mission to get a ‘trinket’ for Lance. He wasn’t sure that was the best word for what was, essentially, a glitter jar. It was a hollow glass pill-shaped thing and a pretty carved stand, filled with little crystals, brightly colored seashells, sparkling sand and water all from one of Puig’s oceans. You were meant to fiddle with it until the sand started to shift and swirl, revealing the crystals and shells. Supposedly, there was a specific meaning for each thing in the water and whichever one you saw first was supposed to be what life had in store for you. He hadn’t been able to find any information on what meant what, though. 

He’d been really sick of standard issue nutrition packs by the time that mission had ended.

“It’s really cool. I genuinely love it… so I’m getting you a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for your birthday.”

“Fine,” he sighed, smiling. “I won’t say anything else about you getting me a book.”

“Good.” He flashed a smile that shone brighter than the sun, then laced his fingers together and stretched his arms up. While he watched, because there was no fucking way he could look anywhere else, Lance shook his legs out and bent in half, kind of bouncing as he leaned toward one ankle and then the other. Once he was finished with that, he grabbed the top of his feet with his hands and leaned into each hip. The visuals were bad enough, but damn, the little grunts and groans Lance made while stretching _did things_ to Keith. “Ready?”

“Mmm?” Those workout pants should be outlawed. _Jesus!_

“Keith? Ready to get back to work? Or do you need more of a break?”

“Oh! Right… yeah, sure.” Noooo… not even a little bit ‘ready’ to start dancing again. He just knew Lance was going to get on his case about relaxing, because even Keith could tell that he was wound tighter than a spring. 

There was no way that learning the fucking Cha Cha from Lance was going to make him _less_ tense!

Sure enough, the rest of his lesson was more of the (mortifying) same. As was the shorter session they had the next day. Both times, he’d headed back to his quarters frustrated, embarrassed, and lovesick. He was pretty sure he was driving his mother insane, but she insisted he wasn’t and since the person he _usually_ opened up to about stuff like this was now ten days out from his wedding, his options were pretty limited. He was rooming with Acxa, and she was pretty serious with Lance’s _sister_ which meant he couldn’t talk to her about any of this. So, he was forced to take his mother at her word and rant at her so he didn’t explode or something. 

When he arrived for their third lesson, he found himself standing at the door, trying to find the will to cross the threshold and the self-control to survive the lesson. Both were pretty damn elusive. He wasn’t making _any_ progress and the wedding was next week! 

He should just stop torturing himself and accept that he was going to ruin Shiro’s wedding. He’d either: A- be a disaster on the dancefloor, or B-die of lust during a lesson. Actually, there was a third option, too.. C- end up doing something _really stupid_ like kiss Lance, get rejected, and create an awkward mess that overshadowed the wedding altogether. Frankly, at this point, he was actually _rooting_ for option B. 

At least then he wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.

When he finally managed to get the door open and forced his feet to carry him inside he found Lance stretching.

_Fuck._

He was doing the goddamn _splits_ on the floor, folding over to the worn wooden planks with his arms upstretched. Why? Why did the universe seem to hate Keith so much? He was never going to get that image out of his brain. _Ever_.

“Hey Keith?” Lance asked from the floor, which seemed to kickstart Keith’s brain and reminded him that he should be stowing his gear and changing his shoes… and _not_ ogling the long, graceful line of that strong back.

“Yeah?” he dropped onto the bench that sat against one wall, shrugging out of his jacket.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” 

Keith paused, glancing over to where Lance was now doubled over one leg, holding his foot in both hands and tucking his head down against his knee, still in the splits. His mouth went dry and he had to make a conscious effort not to get up and close the distance between them so he could… Nope! Focus. He’d asked Keith a question. About… uh… Right! “Yeah? Of course I know that. Why?”

Lance shrugged, sitting back up and then tipping to the other side to repeat the stretch. “Just… The wedding’s so close…”

“Ten days. I know. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, though?” God damn, it wasn’t enough that he had to see Lance like that? He had to also see him reflected into infinity in the mirrors of the rehearsal space?

Maybe this was hell?

Maybe Keith had died on some mission, or slipped in the shower and snapped his neck… and ended up in hell. This seemed like a torture specifically designed for him. Dance lessons with Lance, so close but constantly out of reach, for infinity. Like, those people from the Greek myths he’d been obsessed with as a kid. 

“I was just thinking… you know the steps. The choreography isn’t that hard. I’ve seen you fight, dude. There are things you do in a fight that are just… straight up ballet moves. You’re agile, graceful, quick. You are good at, like, every component of dancing. But it’s not _clicking_ for you…” He finished his stretch and shifted so he was facing Keith, legs bent in front of him with the soles of his feet together. “I mean, I’m happy to run the steps with you round the clock if that’s what it takes. Some people need that, and that’s fine. But, when I break it down, I can’t figure out where the issue is. So, I was thinking… maybe it’s not about the dance?”

“Oh?” Panic loomed, feeling like icy water dripping down his back. Where was Lance going with this?!?! Was he busted?? 

He was busted.

He was definitely busted.

This was the part where Lance let him down gently.

Or laughed his ass off at him.

One of those things, anyway.

Because the rejection was inevitable. Keith wasn’t an idiot, he knew that. He knew that his _thing_ for Lance was completely hopeless. Futile.

Yeah, he was in hell.

“I figure… the whole wedding thing… it might be hard on you? Like, you and Shiro have been so close for so long… and I know… you…”

“I don’t have a thing for Shiro,” he interrupted, because people always assumed he was carrying a torch for him, and he wasn’t. Like, he wasn’t blind or stupid, he knew that Shiro was handsome and smart and funny and all that other stuff. He knew the guy was a catch. He just… wasn’t _that_ to Keith. He’d always been too important to him… a combo of friend, family, and… something close to a savior… for any kind of infatuation to take root. Hero worship? Sure. That had been a big part of the early days of their friendship, but he’d outgrown it over time as he’d gotten to know him better.

“Yeah? I know that?” Lance cocked his head to one side, watching him, “c’mon, you don’t think I know you guys both too well to think that? If I thought you had a thing for Shiro, I would have shown up at your place with beer and a stack of dumbass movies when they announced the engagement. I was gonna say… you were probably friends with Adam…”

“Oh.” His mood faltered, memories flooding him. Adam. “Um… yeah. Not super close, but… yeah.”

“So, I thought… maybe… it might be, like… _complicated_ for you to be part of… you know… all this,” he made a vague gesture. “The wedding stuff.”

“You think I can’t dance because of Adam?” He wasn’t really sure how that would work.

“I think… it might be hard to relax enough to _get it_ if this is stirring up stuff for you,” Lance answered carefully. “Shiro said you were helping to plan the wedding… before Kerberos.”

“I wasn’t doing much,” he answered, shaking his head. “I went with them for a couple of cake tastings, and I was weighing in on the music options. Nothing vital.”

“Still… memories are weird,” Lance shrugged, “and so is grief. Adam was your friend, and now…”

“I don’t think Shiro is replacing him, if that’s what you are getting at.”

“It’s not! I’m just saying, it would make sense if you were dealing with some stuff about Adam right now… So, you know, if you want to talk, I’ll listen. That’s all.”

_Did_ he want to talk about Adam? He hadn’t really thought about the wedding from this angle before, but Lance had a point. Maybe some of his weird mood lately had to do with shit he’d been ignoring? Like, Adam… and the way that he’d left things with him.

“He taught me to cook,” he found himself saying. “Adam. Nothing fancy, but the basics. We both had the same free period and on Wednesdays it was last class, so he usually cooked a big dinner, and then they’d take leftovers for lunch on Thursday and Friday. But it meant that they ate earlier, so there was enough time to go out on the hoverbikes afterwards without worrying about base curfew.”

“Man, I hated trying to get back to the Garrison by curfew. Signed back into grounds by nine pm? Really? You couldn’t even see a movie in town on weeknights!”

“Yeah, it sucked.” He leaned back against the mirrored wall behind him, “so, anyway… Shiro started inviting me to dinner on Wednesdays, so we could head out right after we loaded the dishwasher, and then Adam found out we had the same free and he told me I could just head on over whenever I was ready.”

“So you helped out with the cooking?”

Keith nodded, “peeling veggies and stuff first, but more later. It wasn’t like… recipes. It was more like this is what saute means and how to tell when steaks were cooked, and how to bargain shop or stretch a meal. He _did_ teach me a four ingredient peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe that is delicious though.”

“I didn’t know you were into cooking and baking and stuff.”

“I’m not. I’m _into_ not starving to death. Everyone always forgets that I was on my own for a year. It’s okay. I get it. We were in the same class, and so you just think of me as another student… but I had my own place for a year. I had to grocery shop and cook and clean and pay bills for months. No Altean food goo in the desert.”

“Yeah… I guess so. It’s weird to think of you out in that little conspiracy shack for so long by yourself. What kind of stuff did he cook?”

“Normal stuff. Lots of stir fries and casseroles. His chili was really good and he made this soup with, like, chicken and bacon and potatoes and leeks that was really great.” He smiled, more and more memories coming to mind. “Oh man- after he heard about that fight with James, I showed up on Wednesday and he taught me to make bread. Told me to punch the dough instead of classmates.”

Lance laughed, shaking his head, “I guess you could always picture Griffin’s face on the dough before you beat the crap out of it.”

“Yup,” he popped the p, grinning, “did that a few times. Iverson’s, too.”

“Oooh yeah, good choice! I’ve wanted to deck Iverson a few times over the years. Adam… He sounds like a good guy. Veronica had a class with him and said he was nice. Quiet.”

“Yeah, he was. A really good guy. Calm. Steady, but not… a goody two shoes. He used to cheat at cards all the time and Shiro was like, totally clueless.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Did I tell Shiro that he kept getting stuck with laundry duty because Adam was dealing from the bottom of the deck and palming cards? Noooo!” He rolled his eyes, “they used to wash my uniforms and Adam never bothered to starch the collars! If I told Shiro, they’d stop betting chores and I’d have to iron my own shit. Fuck that noise! Plus, Adam paid me to keep my mouth shut.”

Lance blinked at him before dissolving into laughter, “oh my god… you were such a little shit!”

“I was fourteen! All fourteen year olds are little shits! Do you remember Pidge? It’s the age.”

“Hey now, Pidge was saving whole worlds when she was fourteen!”

“Yeah, and in between that, she was being a little shit.” He smiled at Lance. The blue marks on his cheeks glowed softly, the way they did sometimes, and his laughter filled the whole room, the way it always did. Once again, Keith’s heart felt like a bird trapped in the cage of his ribs, wings beating fast and erratic and jumping all over the place. Like it could take flight if it could just get free. 

Because, yeah… Lance was hot. Stupid hot. With those legs, and that back and those hands, and hips, and that butt. 

And, yeah… Lance was handsome, all sparkling eyes, and big, dazzling smiles, and perfect bone structure, and flirty winks. 

But it was more than that. 

Keith saw so much more than how good looking he was. 

He saw that he was kind, and brave. He was loyal and resilient. Strong in ways Keith had a hard time understanding but admired. Far more humble than he initially seemed. He was clever and creative, and observant. Steady. He admitted his mistakes and worked to fix them. He loved the spotlight, but only when he _earned_ it, he didn’t throw people under the bus to make himself look better and he didn’t take credit for other people’s accomplishments.

Lance was _good_ , genuinely a good man. He’d volunteered his time to help Keith learn this dance, because… he wanted Keith to do well, and he wanted Shiro’s wedding to be perfect. He’d been patient and encouraging, and he’d worked hard to help him… and he’d been the only person who had ever mentioned Adam’s loss to Keith. 

Not even Shiro had asked if Keith was hurting over Adam’s death. 

Turned out… he kind of was. He hadn’t even realised it himself, but… somehow, Lance had known.

“We… weren’t on good terms,” he said quietly, “me and Adam… when they said Shiro died… I blamed Adam for breaking up with him, so he was stressed and not sleeping before the mission. He was mad at me for not taking his side, not telling Shiro to stay. He thought he would have stayed if I said I needed him to. We got into a huge fight. A few of them, actually.” He sighed, turning his attention back to his forgotten shoes and willing away the tears he felt stinging his eyes. “I was so mad at the world… he was an easy target. A scapegoat. I was planning… uh…” He cleared his throat, “I was gonna apologize… when we got back here. In space… I… I dunno, his opinion started making more sense to me. I didn’t _agree_ with how he handled it, but I kinda _got_ where he was coming from, and I was gonna… try to fix things…”

“But he died before you had the chance,” Lance finished for him, his voice soft.

Nodding, Keith cleared his throat again, swiping away a few traitorous tears with the back of his hand. “There isn’t even a grave… just a stupid plaque… in a wall of plaques. Feels wrong to talk to a nameplate in a memorial.”

“It’s just a symbol… he’s… not really _there,_ you know?”

“Yeah… it’s dumb. It’s not like it would change anything, anyway.”

“It could. It helps me when I talk to Allura.”

“Allura is everywhere, though. It’s not the same.”

“Every living thing has quintessence, Keith, not just Allura. You can’t destroy matter or energy, right? So… Adam’s quintessence is _somewhere_ . It’s not _gone_ . Besides, sometimes there are things we just need to _say_ ... it’s not always about the other person _hearing_.”

He hadn’t even realised Lance had moved until he was sitting across from him on the bench, catching his hand in a supportive little squeeze. “Pretend I’m Adam for a minute. Say what you need to say. You don’t have to carry that burden forever just because of timing. We’re all made of the same space dust, right?”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Mmm… I dunno… I mean, we know that death isn’t really the end. Maybe, he’ll hear you... however he is existing now. Maybe not. But, I think it would help _you_ to say it, and that’s important, too. Your pain is important, Keith.”

“So… you just want me to… make believe you are Adam? I don’t think I can do that. I’d feel too weird.” Way too weird. His relationship with Adam had been… more important than he’d realised at the time, but this was _Lance_ ... and his feelings for Lance were on the very opposite end of the spectrum of ‘caring about someone’ than his feelings for Adam had been. It felt… wrong… to pretend that Lance was Adam, when he couldn’t seem to stem the rushing tide of the _everything_ that being around Lance brought.

Lance squeezed his hand again, ducking down so he could catch Keith’s eyes, “alright… then… how about you just tell me what you wish you could have said?”

“I did that, though. I wanted to apologize, tell him I understood a bit better. I wasn’t mad at him anymore.” 

“Alright… anything else?” 

How Lance was getting him to do this, Keith would never know. But, somehow, he found himself telling him things he’d never voiced before. Even when he’d been in the Quantum Abyss with his mother and she’d seen flashes of the fights with Adam, she’d just… held him. She didn’t ask questions and he didn’t volunteer any information. Not that either of them were particularly prone to long conversations about feelings. 

“Umm… I missed him. When I was in the desert, and especially when we were in space- I missed hanging out with him… and uhh… those cooking lessons probably kept me from getting really sick from living on crap junk food.”

“Woulda been real hard to pilot Red if you’d had scurvy or whatever,” Lance pointed out, teasing a hint of a smile out of him, “so… there’s an argument that Adam helped save all universes everywhere.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes, “yeah… I guess that’s true.”

Lance smiled at him, reaching out to brush away a stray tear. This tender, supportive side of Lance was dangerous. 

He’d known that for years. Lance seemed to be able to just _do this_ with people, and it was a wonderful trait, really. Keith genuinely admired it. 

That wasn’t the problem. 

The problem was that Keith had spent too many years too starved for exactly this kind of contact for it to _not_ affect him on a level that Lance wasn’t intending. 

Tender, supportive Lance was far too tempting, far too potent. Far too close to the intimacy that he craved so badly. Far too easy to _feel_ like an expression of an emotion that Lance just didn’t have for Keith… and Keith’s fluttering, caged heart was so used to accepting scraps that there was very real danger of him letting that craving get the best of him and… try to use it like some kind of crutch, even though he knew it would break him eventually.

Lance’s hand was warm against his cheek, somehow soft and silky despite the farmwork that filled his days. It fit the curve of Keith’s face too perfectly, making him want to lean into it. “He seems like he was a pretty smart guy. I bet he figured out that you didn’t really think a lot of that stuff. That you were just hurting and needed someone to blame.”

“Yeah?” Did he have any idea what he was doing to Keith? How he was soothing old wounds like a balm? How he made the world make a little more sense with just a few words? How he could smile and offer comfort and make all the cynicism and brittle defensiveness yield to the hope he offered? Did Lance know that, just by being himself, he could restore Keith’s faith in a world that had ground it down to dust over the years? 

Nodding, Lance rubbed his thumb over the back of Keith’s hand. His eyes were so kind. Blue was supposed to be a cool color, but Lance’s eyes were so blue, and held so much _warmth_. They were the blue of a summer sky, and Keith couldn’t help but bask in them like they actually held sunbeams. “Mmmhmm… he was probably doing the exact same thing. Grief… it’s a mean fucker. I can’t see Shiro falling in love with someone who would blame a teenager for lashing out when they were mourning their best friend.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Lance hadn’t even _known_ Adam, but he seemed to understand him, his conclusions really _did_ make sense for the quiet, practical man that had slowly won Keith’s trust and friendship. Far more sense than the vicious anger and explosive pain-fuelled arguments had.

“You talked to a teenager lately? They’re kind of all idiots.”

He snorted, the sound morphing into a laugh, “what?”

“I’m serious! Think back to all the shit we did that we thought made perfect sense… we were idiots, Keith. Everyone is at that age. Pidge and Matt are literally the smartest people on the planet- Pidge ‘improved’ the shuttle and it blew up. Matt? Jesus, have you heard some of the stories about the stunts he pulled? Moron. You and Allura _both_ decided to run away in the middle of the night because you thought the Galra were tracking you- like, instead of coming up with a controlled test of that theory you just fucking bolted. I let Nyma goad me into doing something I knew was stupid, because she… uhh…” Red bloomed in Lance’s cheeks and his eyes darted away as he cleared his throat, “ummm... the details of how she did that aren’t important. Definitely not important. What _is_ important is that I knew better, but I still ended up handcuffed to a tree while she stole my lion. Teenagers are idiots. I’m sure that once Adam calmed down and had a bit of time to deal with his own shit, he realised you didn’t mean half the stuff you said. You’re not as enigmatic as you think you are.”

“Shiro got suspended for a week for trying to make homemade booze in the flightbay storage lockers. In shit that had _his name_ on it! He thought he could argue that someone was trying to frame him if he got busted,” he volunteered, starting to accept Lance’s theory about teenagers being unilaterally dumb.

“Oh my God! Are you _serious_??” Lance looked impossibly adorable, his expression an endearing mix of shock and gleeful curiosity.

Grinning, he nodded, “dead serious.”

“How’d he get found out?”

“It fucking exploded! It was alcohol in the _flightbay_! One of the jets was too near to it and when it took off, it got too hot and _bam_! Adam said the place stank of rotten apples and burnt sugar for weeks after.”

“I… can’t even… holy shit that was _dumb_!” He shook his head, his nose crinkling from the smile that blossomed before Keith’s eyes and made his gut drop with a wave of that freefall sensation Lance could cause.

“Yup,” he giggled, “and Shiro is a terrible liar, too… I don’t know how he ever thought he was going to get away with that.”

“Teenagers are idiots,” Lance repeated, still smiling at him. “That’s how. Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” surprisingly, that was true. He didn’t just feel better compared to when he was talking about Adam, either. He felt better than he had in _ages_. “I really am. This… helped. Thank-you, Lance.”

“You don’t have to thank me for being your friend, Keith,” Lance said, waving him off. Like, he’d done nothing. So… no… Lance really had no idea what he did to Keith. “Okay… we still need to get some work done, but I wanna try something a little different. Still Cha Cha, but we are going to stick to just the basic step, change out the music, and not worry about the routine. What we were doing wasn’t working, so time for a new approach. It’s a fun dance. I think if you can have fun with it, the choreography will be less of a head trip.”

“I’m not sure that we have the _time_ for that, Lance,” he pointed out, “the wedding is next week.”

“We don’t have time to keep doing something we _know_ isn’t working,” countered Lance. “The sooner we figure out what _does_ work, the more time we have to do _that_.”

“That… makes sense.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to look so shocked,” Lance grumbled, but he was smirking, and Keith had gotten better at reading Lance over the years. Now, he knew that Lance was playing around. “So, I have a whole ass playlist of songs that work for a cha cha. You pick something and we’ll warm up.”

“Alright, alright,” he sighed, reluctantly slipping his hand free of Lance’s and heading over to the controls for the music. None of the song titles were familiar except for the piece that Shiro and Curtis had chosen for this cursed dance they had planned. Many of them were in Spanish, so he was pretty confident that he hadn’t heard them. There wasn’t a whole lot of overlap in their respective musical tastes, so it didn’t surprise him that he didn’t know any of the choices and he just chose one at random.

Lance gave him a few minutes to stretch on his own. He’d been doing martial arts for years, and his fighting style relied on agility, so he just ran through his usual stretches. Lance had a suggestion for two other stretches that he wasn’t overly familiar with but were easy enough to figure out, and then he joined Lance in the center of the room.

“You need a refresher on the basic step?” Lance asked, adjusting Keith’s stance slightly. 

“One, two, cha-cha-cha?” He rolled his eyes, “I think I remember that from yesterday, Lance.”

“Ooooh look at you, all confidence and attitude,” he teased, those summer sky eyes sparkling again. “In that case, you lead. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll follow.”

“So, just the basic step, right? None of the other stuff?” He could feel his nerves starting to come back, even though Lance had set a low bar.

“Just the basic step… but don’t forget about the hips.”

Right.

Lance’s goddamn _hips._

How could he have forgotten about that?

“Got it,” he croaked, nerves giving way to dread. This was going to be a disaster. “Can you cue me?”

“Sure thing Mullet.” Lance shifted the grip of their hands and took a deep breath, his expression making it clear that Keith was supposed to follow suit. He nodded slightly to the beat, “on three… One, two, cha-cha-cha… Two, two, cha-cha-annnd… Three, two, cha-cha-cha… Good job! Cha-cha-cha…”

Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be a _complete_ disaster, after all! He kept track of the pattern in his head, moving Lance across the floor.

“Uh… how do I keep from just going back and forth?” he asked. When Lance had been the one leading they’d travelled around the whole floor, but somehow he just kept ending up with them back where they started. “Am I screwing up?”

“You’re not screwing up, Keith,” Lance said gently, laughter lacing his voice. “The most basic steps do this. Once you are comfortable, I can show you how to cover more ground.”

“Okay… good. Not yet though!” So far, this was actually going kind of well. He didn’t want to shoot himself in the foot.

“Not yet,” he agreed easily, “there’s no rush. You’re doing really well. Make sure you shift your weight completely from one foot to the other on the cha-cha-chas or it won’t look right… Good… okay… you’re losing it a little. Don’t stop, just... I’m going to hold your hips, okay?”

“What? I’m not doing anything different!” Shit. He was fucking this up! And now Lance was going to… His thoughts screeched to a halt. Lance had both his hands on Keith’s hips, tucked up under the hem of his shirt, the pads of his fingers pressing gently into his bare skin.

“You’re stiffening up,” Lance said… and _of course_ he’d phrase it that way! 

‘Stiffening up’ was a very real danger with him this close to Lance, especially with all the touching.

“Relax, Keith… you can do this… just follow my hips for a minute. Don’t look at your feet. Look at me…” He must have been trying not to sound like he was being bossy or critical, because he was keeping his voice low, soft. It was barely more than a whisper, and the gentle encouragement sounded almost sleepy.

He dragged his focus up from the floor to Lance’s face. “I’m looking,” he whispered. God, Lance really was soooo handsome.

“Good… you’re doing really well. All you have to do is follow my hands and stay relaxed…”

Staying relaxed would be a lot easier if Lance wasn’t saying so many things that wouldn’t be out of place in a _very different context_ , in that soft, soft voice… and making him _wonder_ about things he had no business wondering about.

At least, not _now_. Not in the middle of the afternoon, while actually being in the same room as Lance, who was watching his face and probably already figuring out which way Keith’s thoughts were headed.

“Keith, come on… relax. It’s just me and you here and you were doing so well. I don’t get what’s making you such a ball of nerves. You can do this. I know you can.”

“I don’t know,” he fibbed. 

“Alright… Let’s… try scrapping the steps altogether for a bit. We’re just gonna dance. No cha cha, no routine, none of that. Just… enjoying the music together, okay?”

“I’m not really someone who dances just to enjoy the music, Lance.” Bad. This was _bad_ . He was having enough of a hard time keeping himself in check when he had a structure and a goal to distract him from all of the… _Lance_ that was happening right now! 

“Just try?” he coaxed, eyes pleading.

_Fuck_.

He’d never really been able to deny this man anything, even when they were barely more than kids and bickering constantly.

“What do I have to do?” He rolled his eyes, hoping that it hid how utterly helpless he was when Lance looked at him like that.

“Nothing much,” Lance replied, face lighting up. He skimmed his hands down Keith’s arms, lifting them to Lance’s broad shoulders. “You keep those up there, and I’ll just…” His fingers slipped back under the hem of Keith’s t-shirt, thumbs tucking up against his hipbones and sending out warm ripples of tingling awareness. “There. Don’t look down. Just… look at me and forget about your feet, alright? I got you.”

“Um…” His brain stalled out. The whole world just… fell away, leaving nothing but the two of them, in this room, with the music… and moving together.

Lance was… mesmerizing.

Somehow, some way, Lance managed to keep him just distracted enough with his teasing and stories and banter that Keith just… stopped thinking about his feet. He stopped overthinking how close they were. Stopped shorting out about Lance’s hands against his skin. 

The music played and Lance steered him around the dancefloor and he didn’t trip or stumble. He didn’t step on Lance’s toes, or crash into him. Song after song, they talked and laughed and… danced… together. 

Effortlessly.

It wasn’t the routine. It wasn’t even a cha cha. Keith wasn’t sure how helpful it was going to be for achieving the goal of _not_ ruining Shiro’s wedding… but it was _dancing_ , at least.

It was dancing _with Lance_ without turning into a complete mess… and even if he never learned that stupid routine, Keith was going to treasure this rare moment of complete functionality while in close contact with Lance… because… this?

It was… pretty close to heaven.

Lance seemed encouraged by this new approach to their lessons, and so for the next few days the lessons followed a pattern. Stretching together, followed by some kind of conversation about Keith’s life and his friendship with Shiro. Lance had a knack for getting him to talk about painful stuff without really noticing just how much _crap_ he was digging up. He had a knack for taking all Keith’s weird, complicated _shit_ and making sense of it. He didn’t _fix it_ , didn’t even seem to be trying to… he just… made Keith feel like he wanted to understand him. It fed into Keith’s ever-deepening feelings for him… like… a _lot_... and he was always half-aware, in the back of his mind, that he was inviting more pain, but that didn’t seem to discourage him from opening his mouth.

The way Lance asked questions and just listened; the way he smiled and cocked his head to one side, thinking; the way he clarified what Keith was saying and then gave his point of view was… nice.

It was… nice. 

It felt good.

Then they’d put on music and just… move together. Lance hadn’t even so much as mentioned the cha cha or the wedding reception. Keith was aware of the time passing, but he’d stopped freaking out about it.

The light streaming in from the big windows had changed, the lit up sections of flooring changing in shape and angle as they danced, making Keith vaguely aware of the fact that it was getting late. He couldn’t bear to bring it up though, he was enjoying this time together too much.

“You busy after this?” Lance asked as the song started to wind down.

“Me?” He blinked, trying to get his brain to shift gears. “Uh… I don’t think so?”

“I’ve got to head over to the rental shop to get that last fitting done.”

“Oh, shit… I need to call them, I forgot all about it!” Shiro was seriously going to kill him if he kept falling short on his Best Man duties! How hard was it to remember to get fitted for the stupid tuxedo?? He’d been so caught up in the dancing lessons that-

“Woah, okay! I can see you self-destructing in there! Calm down. There’s still time, Keith, geeze!” Lance poked his nose, smiling softly, “why don’t you just tag along with me and I’ll see if they can squeeze you in, too? And, if they can’t you can book your own appointment while we are there.”

“That… makes a lot of sense,” he let out a sigh, nerves already settling. “Thank-you, Lance.”

“No problemo, Mullet,” Lance grinned, “big family, remember? I am an old pro at wedding prep. Besides, this’ll be good practice for when we are dealing with the bridezillas.”

“The who? Huh? What are you talking about?” 

“My sister and Acxa,” he laughed, “although, to be fair… it’s probably even money that they will just elope or something. Acxa doesn’t seem like she’s much of the fairytale wedding type, you know?”

“Wait! Do you know something I don’t know?” Acxa and Veronica were _engaged_ ?!?! No! That couldn’t be right! Acxa was one of his closest friends, practically family, and currently his roommate at the Garrison. She would definitely have told him if she and her girlfriend had decided to get fucking _married_. Right?

“Nothing _official_ ,” Lance held up his hands, chuckling at him. “Calm down already. It’s just… they’ve been together for a while and they’ve got… I dunno… that kind of _energy_ , you know? Like… there’s a ‘permanent’ vibe to them, I guess. Veronica and Acxa, hand in hand… you know?”

“Oh… yeah… I guess there kind of is, isn’t there? I don’t think about it much… but yeah. They are definitely… like… a unit or something.”

“Exactly!” Lance shut down the sound system while Keith grabbed their gear. When they stepped out the door, the sun was just beginning to set. The sky was painted in crimsons and purples and umbers… and Keith couldn’t help but think of the last night before the Atlas launched all those years ago.

God, Lance had been a mess! So nervous, and looking ridiculous in the get-up Coran had thrown together for him. How long had they spent watching the sky atop the Black Lion? It couldn’t have been that long, Lance had gotten home in time to change for his date (or so Keith assumed, based on the lack of comments from Allura about Lance wearing pots and pans to dinner), after all. 

For him it had felt like time had… kind of… hiccuped- creating a little bubble, a tiny little detour similar to what he’d experienced on the space whale.

Idly, he wondered if Lance thought about that conversation as often as he did.

How many times had he spun a fantasy where that whole thing had played out very differently? One where he’d let himself be selfish, ignored the fact that Lance had a date with Allura, and confessed his own feelings to him hoping to sway him away from her. He was glad he _hadn’t_ in reality because that felt like a shitty thing to do to people he considered friends… but his fantasies couldn’t hurt Allura or Lance… and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from… imagining all the different ways that could have gone. Most of the possibilities were… pretty terrible.

But there were some…

Yeah, there was some little masochistic streak inside him that loved to torture himself with those little what-if fantasies.

“Helllloooo? Keith?” Lance waved a hand in front of his face, “ah-ha, there you are! Did you drive here?”

“Umm… no? No, I got dropped off. Ezor was headed out. Why?”

“Just figuring out if you were riding with me or meeting me at the rental place.”

“Oh… yeah… that makes sense. Sorry. The sky…” He gestured feebly at the horizon, not wanting to go into detail about the tangent his mind had gone on.

Lance turned, tipping his face up to the sky and smiling fondly, “I don’t get nostalgic for much about living at the Garrison… but the sunsets… they really are something, huh?”

“Mmhmm,” he agreed, face mirroring the angle of Lance’s, but his eyes taking in the smile and the soft eyes, Lance’s handsome face in profile. “Gorgeous.”

No matter how much time passed, Keith would never get used to the way people reacted like they were some kind of celebrities. The staff at the rental place were falling all over themselves to accommodate him during Lance’s appointment, despite both of them saying he was just looking to make his own appointment. They seemed to think he was a lot busier than he actually was. He’d arranged to use almost all his stockpiled vacation time during the weeks leading up to the wedding, starting with the yacht trip (of all things) that Shiro wanted in lieu of a bachelor party that ended right before the dance lessons had started. So, he was far from _overscheduled_ but the store clerks didn’t seem to believe him about that.

Lance, of course, was much better at dealing with them. He was even better at navigating the whole ‘celebrity’ thing- which made sense, now that Keith thought about it. Lance had done the whole ‘Voltron Show’ thing while Keith had been with the Blade, so he’d had actual experience dealing with real _fans_ where Keith hadn’t. Lance was also just… better at dealing with people than Keith was. 

He always had been.

So, Keith just… went quiet and let Lance do his thing. Even with laying on the charm full bore, Lance wasn’t able to dissuade the staff from ‘squeezing him in’ but at least they stopped apologizing to Keith for his own lack of foresight (which was very strange). Lance gave him a huge grin and a thumbs up as they were both herded into dressing rooms.

His own tux fit pretty well. They didn’t think they’d need to make any changes or alterations- which was a relief. Lance’s though… was a mess. The best guess anyone had was that there had been some kind of mix-up when Lance’s measurements had been sent. Lance had to be completely refitted, which meant that Keith got to watch him slowly get more and more fidgety and distracted as he had to _wait_.

“I’m sorry this is taking so long,” Lance muttered as the staff went in search of shirts that would fit. “I don’t understand how things got so garbled.

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t have anywhere I need to be.”

“Still,” he sighed, “I said this was going to be quick…”

“Lance, it takes as long as it takes. Not your fault Shiro decided to go with tuxes instead of dress uniforms.”

“Uhhhh… actually… it kind of _is_ my fault. I’m not part of the Garrison anymore, remember?”

“Yeah? So? Your uniform is a _Paladin_ uniform… if the Lions ever come back, you’ll still be Red Paladin.”

“Nooo… the uniform is Garrison issue, I can’t wear it anymore.” He shrugged, “and rather than me sticking out like a sore thumb, or… knowing Shiro, he was probably worried that I’d feel left out… either way, they decided to skip over uniforms altogether.”

“What?!?! That’s fucking bullshit!” How _dare_ they disrespect Lance and everything he’d done as a Paladin to protect people!?!?! Just because he wasn’t _Garrison_ anymore didn’t mean he wasn’t a valued and important member of _Voltron_ and therefore the fucking coalition! “Who made that call? Because I’m going to have some _words_ with them. I’m the fucking Black Paladin and _I_ decide on the status of my own goddamn team!”

“Uhhh… Keith?”

“What?” he snapped, already scrolling through his phone’s contact list. 

“You get that this is… not a big deal, right?” Lance coaxed, settling his hand lightly over Keith’s wrist, “it literally makes no difference until and unless the Lions return… and if that happens, we can deal with it then.”

“But-”

“But nothing. Shiro has already decided on tuxedos. It’s okay. Really. Honestly, I don’t know that I’d _want_ to wear that uniform again… especially not for a happy occasion like a wedding.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, peeking up at Lance and willing himself to calm down.

Lance nodded, smiling at him, “yeah. I’m sure. I’m not offended or insulted. Shiro and Curtis are happy with the choices they’ve made. I just… need a tux that fits me, that’s all.”

“I don’t mind going off on people, you know that, right?”

Lance laughed, “yeah Keith. I think by now I’m pretty clear that you ‘don’t mind going off on people.’ I used to be the one trying to keep you from doing that, remember?”

“I wasn’t that bad…”

“What?? Are you kidding me right now? Have you forgotten about King Lubos??”

“He was no king!”

“Yeah… I remember you saying that when you took him hostage. Except… he _literally_ was their King, even if he was a shitty one.”

“Whatever… it all worked out.” He leaned back in his chair, fighting the impulse to cross his arms and glare at Lance like a little kid. That was the end of the conversation though, because before Lance could respond, the clerk returned with stuff for him to try on.

By the time they got the mix-up straightened out and left the rental place, it was dark and Keith was starving. Lance was still apologizing for the outing taking so long, despite Keith’s repeated assurances that he didn’t mind. They bickered back and forth about it without any heat until Keith finally caved and let Lance go through a drive-thru and buy him a burger and fries ‘to make it up’ to him. 

At least he was reasonably functional in Lance’s presence outside of the damn dance classes… even if he was still pissed about the whole uniform issue. He _was_ going to get to the bottom of that- whether Lance thought it was worth it or not.

Lance, for his part, seemed to be doing his best to distract Keith from the issue altogether. He was regaling Keith with stories from the McClain family farm- the time Nadia ended up stuck in the hay loft overnight because she’d knocked over the ladder and the whole family just assumed she was camping out at a different house; when Sylvio was showing off for some of his friends and Kaltenecker knocked him into a ‘cow patty’; the struggles with growing juniberries on that scale in Earth’s soil and climate. It was nice to hear about Lance’s life. 

He tended not to talk too much about the farm and what he’d been up to when they all had their group vid-chats, but Keith was endlessly curious about how such a calm, predictable life could make Lance happy. His memories of Lance were so closely tied to his noble, heroic nature, and his sense of adventure. 

Had he just… outgrown that? Did he miss it at all? Was farming more exciting than Keith thought? 

Because… it was clear that Lance wasn’t _unhappy_ on the farm, and when he’d first said that’s what he was going to do, Keith had been so sure that he _would_ be unhappy. So… how did that work? How was Keith so wrong about what Lance needed? He didn’t really think he understood _people_ just, in general… but he _had_ thought he understood Lance… and then… _farming_.

It still didn’t make sense to him, but obviously it had been the right call.

“What?” Lance reached over and stole a fry. “You’ve got your scowly thinking face on.”

“My what now?” He swatted at Lance’s hand, “don’t steal food from a former foster kid. It’s really not safe.”

“Ooooh… I’m soooo scared!” Rolling his eyes, Lance made a big show of crunching on the stolen fry, his expression defiant. “Your scowly thinking face. You’re thinking about something that confuses you or you don’t like… so you get all… scowly. I don’t know how to be more clear about this. It’s like… pretty self-explanatory.”

“Ass.”

“I got one, but I’m not one,” Lance quipped like a ten year old. “Seriously though… what are you thinking about that’s creating frown lines right in front of my face?”

“Just… I dunno… I guess I just thought, when you said you were going to the farm that it would be temporary, or something.”

“Ohhh… is this going to be one of those ‘Lance you are wasting your talent’ conversations? Because… I really doubt you’ll be more convincing than my sister… or Shiro.”

“No! No, I’m not trying to tell you what to do with your life!” He held up his hands in mock-surrender, “just… trying to figure out how I was so wrong…”

“You weren’t,” Lance answered, turning his attention back to the road, “this _is_ temporary. I won’t be on the farm forever. I’m just… not really ready to leave yet… and I’m still figuring out what my next steps will be.”

“It’s been years though…”

“Yeah, it has. But… I guess I needed years. I had a lot of shit to figure out. It took time. Now… it feels like a change is looming. I think it is almost time for me to do something else. I just need to decide what that will be.”

“You have any ideas?” He hadn’t been wrong. Lance had told him he wasn’t wrong and it made something in his chest _flutter_ with happiness.

“I dunno… I like talking to kids, teaching them about Allura and her message. So… I was thinking… maybe go back to school?”

“For what? Teaching?” Man, Lance would be a great teacher! Kids always took to Lance.

“Uh… no...” He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, as they pulled into the parkade, “social work, actually.”

“Social work?” 

“Yeah… the occupation did a lot of damage. We spent… so much…” He trailed off, “it’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb. What were you going to say?”

“Just… Voltron, we were helping, but it was still… fighting. Just… there was so much destruction, you know? The farm was good for me. It helped to be growing things, you know? And Allura… she was this strong leader, and kickass warrior… but she _healed_ you know?” He smiled softly, “I wanted to do that. Help with the healing… the recovery. So, yeah… social work.”

“I think that’s a great idea, Lance.” He thought back to his time in foster care and the many social workers he’d crossed paths with. Having a good social worker… it made a big difference. Lance parked the car and turned off the ignition, jostling him out of his thoughts.

“I haven’t settled on it for sure,” Lance pointed out as they got out. “I’m just looking into it. Who knows- I might have a completely different idea next week. That’s okay, though. I like being able to take the time to figure it out.” 

He followed Lance to the elevator, “that’s really great, Lance. I think going back to school is a great plan.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, hitting the button, “I was actually a pretty good student… except for flight classes…”

“You were the only one of us that ever figured out how Alteans keep time,” Keith chuckled. 

“It’s _not_ that complicated!” The elevator door slid open and Lance stepped in. “Today was good. You did good. Don’t be late tomorrow.”

“Hey! I haven’t been late a single time!” Keith protested as the door closed. 

* * *

“How are the lessons going?” Shiro asked, his expression carefully neutral.

“I’m probably going to ruin your wedding,” he answered, deadpan, as he served himself up another slice of pie.

“That bad, huh?” 

“Not really, no. Lance is… a really good dancer.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen Lance do the routine, Keith,” Shiro chuckled, “he actually showed up to the _group classes_ we had to learn it.”

“Hey! I was working off planet! You knew I couldn’t make it to those classes! You said it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It wasn’t _then_. Once we got to the bachelor’s trip and you still hadn’t learned it, that’s when I started to worry.”

“I’m learning it! Oh my God, Shiro! I’m learning the stupid routine.” 

“Good- so, let me repeat the question, then.” It was a valiant effort, but the sip of coffee he took from his mug did pretty much nothing to hide the smug little grin on his face. “How are the dance lessons with Lance going?”

“I hate you,” Keith grumbled, pushing away the pie he’d _just_ served himself to thunk his head against the table without fear of ruining the dessert or getting blomfruit filling in his hair. “You couldn’t have picked an _unsexy_ dance for us to do?”

“I think Curtis and I deserve to feel sexy on our wedding day, don’t you?”

“Great… now I’ve got _that_ answer stuck in my head. Awesome. Peachy. Thanks for that.”

“Technically, you are paired with Veronica for the actual dancing. If you want, I can ‘insist’ that now that you have a few lessons you should start rehearsing with her instead-”  
  


“-No!” he interrupted. Possibly a little too enthusiastically, based on the volume he’d inadvertently hit.

Definitely a lot too enthusiastically based on the loud crows of laughter from Shiro.

“Oh, fuck off,” he muttered into the table.

“Sorry,” Shiro said, and Keith appreciated the attempt to sound normal and not like he was stifling laughter. It _failed_ but he appreciated it all the same. “It can’t be that bad though, right? He’s not being an asshole about it or anything is he?”

“Nope. Worse. He’s being super patient and encouraging and… _sweet_.”

“Uh-huh… yeah, that sounds awful.”

“Remember when I said I hate you? I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said that I _loathe_ you.” Groaning, he sat himself back up and reached for his pie again. “If he was being an asshole, he'd get on my nerves. I’d be annoyed and we’d bicker during the lesson and go our separate ways right after. We’d get the work done, and I’d be reminded, daily, of how _terrible_ we’d be together. Instead, he’s _sweet_ and he’s going out of his way to make sure I don’t get discouraged… oh! And he’s decided that he needs to keep me from ‘overthinking it’ by joking and talking… and he keeps telling me to watch his hips, Shiro! His hips!”

“A fate worse than death.” He’d just given up on trying to pretend to be sympathetic, Keith could tell. “It almost sounds like he’s making the lessons fun and enjoyable. Diabolical.”

“I’m done talking to you,” Keith announced, “I’m just going to eat my pie in silence.”

“You realize that you _could_ just… ask him out on a date, right? It’s been _years_ , Keith. Pretty obvious to me that you aren’t dealing with a crush.” 

Keith just ignored him. Asking Lance out on a date was a terrible idea. Keith knew it, and he knew Shiro did, too. He knew that because he and Shiro had been having some variation of this conversation since… longer than Keith wanted to contemplate.

After a moment, Shiro started tapping his metal fingers against the table. He was either trying to prompt a response from Keith, or he was trying to find a new angle to steer the conversation in. “He might surprise you,” he said eventually, his voice mild and comforting.

“He might. Or he might not and then I’d have ruined everything. Lance is my friend. That’s all he is interested in. I don’t want to lose his friendship.” Dammit. So much for ignoring Shiro. He should be better at just _not engaging_ after all this time, but… guess not.

Shiro sighed, “alright Keith… if you say so. Just… Curtis was my friend. He was my friend way back when we were cadets, and he was my friend when I took command of the Atlas… and then he asked to tag along with me on Clear Day and… that was all it took for _everything_ to change.”

  
“And now you and Curtis are getting married… I know the story, Shiro.” He sighed, slumping forward, “me and you? We’re in very different movies, dude. The whole rom com thing stars you. I’m just… the Best Man in the supporting cast.”

“So, that’s my movie… what’s yours?”

“You know those old spaghetti westerns where the retired gunslinger wanders into town, helps out and then moves on to the next town? That’s my life now. It’s a good life, Shiro. I have a good life.”

“I know,” he relented, “I do. I know how much it means to you to have your Mom. Kosmo. The Blades. The Generals. I just… I always liked the spaghetti westerns where the gunslinger stays with the nice widow on the edge of town instead of moving on.”

“Lance being the nice widow in this analogy?” Keith shook his head, “Lance doesn’t need rescuing.”

“Fine… I’ll let it drop.”

“Thank-you!”

“I still say you should ask him out, though!”

“ _Shiro!”_

The next day, he actually beat Lance to the rehearsal space. Not that it really mattered, Lance was the one with the keys. So, it wasn’t like Keith could head inside and warm up on his own. He just had to _wait_. He’d gotten real good at waiting over the years. 

The sun was high in the sky and the little wedge of shade was more of a taunt than a reprieve. It was too bright for him to be able to see much of anything on his phone but glare, even when he twisted and turned and tried to find ways to block the light.

“Geez, what kind of depraved shit are you looking at on your phone that warrants being curled around it with your jacket acting like some kind of privacy shield? Checking out what hot young singles in the area are up to? Trying to get your hands on some black market goods? Planning some kind of epic prank to pull at the wedding?” Lance was laughing as he unlocked the door. “Oh! I know- I’ve heard rumors of illegal hover bike races- tryin’to make some money, Mullet?”

“My hair’s not a mullet,” he grumbled, following Lance inside. 

The sudden change in lighting made him blink and squint, practically blinding him for a minute or so. Galra had great night vision. His wasn’t as good as, say, his mother’s, but it was better than Acxa’s. Unfortunately, going from very bright to dim seemed to mess with him a bit. His eyes sometimes overcompensated and tried to shift to the yellow and purple slitted eyes that occasionally showed up mid-fight. Without the adrenaline of a life and death situation that attempt to shift faltered and gave out. His recessive Galran traits were survival based, following Lance indoors on a summer day wasn’t the kind of life-threatening situation that made them kick in properly.

“You okay?” Lance asked, sounding worried. “If you aren’t up to this we can skip a day…”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He hated when this happened. Even though he knew he was safe, it was unnerving to not be able to see. “Just… need a minute.”

“Allllllllllrighty,” drawled Lance, blessedly choosing to drop it. Keith could hear the familiar noises of Lance dealing with the sound system and powering up the air conditioning. A few clicks and the distinctive high-pitched hum of fluorescent bulbs powering up told him that it was probably safe to unscrew his eyes and test his vision. 

Sure enough, he could see again and the adrenaline surge that came with the sudden loss of sight (and his annoyance at why) started to settle down. He shrugged out of his jacket and changed his shoes, making a conscious effort to adjust his attitude before the dancing started. 

He and Lance had been getting along so well, he didn’t want to ruin it with some kind of blow-up because his mood was sour due to something that didn’t even have anything to do with Lance.

“If you need to vent, we can do that before we stretch,” offered Lance, “or… I mean, I’m rusty, but if you need to punch something we could spar a bit after we stretch, too.”

“Spar?” Keith looked at Lance like he had ten heads, “you want to spend the dance lesson _sparring_? I know we aren’t exactly learning the routine, but don’t you think that’s a bit too far? At least so far we have actually been dancing!”

“I know you. Sometimes, you need to… get some aggression out. _I_ can do that with dance. _You_ definitely aren’t confident enough in your dancing to do that.” He shrugged, “we don’t have to spend the whole time sparring, but if you need to… I’m here.”

Keith just watched him for a minute, trying to decide if he was serious. He’d gotten better at gauging Lance’s moods, at spotting when he was serious or when he was joking, over the years. All signs _seemed_ to be pointing to Lance sincerely offering to spar with him… despite being, as he put it, ‘rusty’. 

Honestly, it was kind of sweet.

Which is why Keith shook his head, the thoughtfulness of the offer soothing some of the lingering irritation. 

“It’s just… my eyes. Going from really bright to an unlit room messes with them.”

“Oh.” Lance shifted his weight, “is it like… a progressive thing? Or…”

“It’s a human genes versus galra genes thing. Always been this way.”

“Oh, thank _fuck_!” Lance said in a rush, “for a second there I thought…”

“Huh?” Why did Lance care so much about his weird eyes?

“Dude- I thought you were telling me that you were going blind!” Letting out a huge huff of air, Lance rested his hand over his heart. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“No Lance… I’m not going blind. If I was, I’d actually make the effort to break it to people gently.” He knew how much it had helped him wrap his head around Shiro’s health issues when the information about them had been kind of… trickled out. He might be blunt, but he wouldn’t blindside people with bad medical news if he could avoid it.

“Good to know. Okay… then, I guess, take a few minutes to adjust, and then we’ll stretch. We got time.” He could hear the encouraging smile in Lance’s voice, but he couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t completely right. 

The wedding was creeping ever-closer and he still didn’t know the routine, let alone have practiced it enough to be confident in it. ‘We got time’ was overstating things a bit.

Stretching didn’t take long and Lance seemed to be able to tell that Keith needed a bit of quiet to shake the last of his soured mood. Once he felt sufficiently warmed up, he nodded to Lance, who started up some music instead of a conversation.

His confusion must have shown on his face, because as Lance settled his hands on Keith’s shoulders he gave a little shrug and a half-smile. “I saw that little flash of panic when I mentioned the time. I figured we could just combine our dancing with the talking. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he relaxed, not wanting to think too hard about how relieved he was that he wasn’t going to miss out on the deeper chats that happened at rehearsal just because they started dancing right away. “That works.”

“Good. Man, I love this song.” Lance began to hum along with the music, letting his eyes drift close for a few bars and he looked so happy and calm that Keith felt all warm and tingly. “Your Mom getting sick of being Earthside yet?”

“Krolia? I… no, I don’t think so. I think she enjoys not having to stay hidden away. She keeps mentioning things she’d seen on tv when I was a baby that she’d wanted to do but couldn’t.”

“Aww, that’s cute. Weird to think of your badass Mar-Mama being cute.”

“My _what?!?!”_ he laughed. Surely he hadn’t heard that right.

“Your Mar-Mama… like Marmora and Mama, but squished together. Good, right?” 

He was so damn proud of himself for that dumbass pun that Keith couldn’t find it in him to argue. “Not bad,” he conceded before smirking, “you should call her that to her face sometime.” 

Honestly, Krolia would probably love the stupid Dad-joke, but he knew that Lance would never believe that. She’d mentioned more than once that both Shiro and Lance reminded her of his Dad in different ways… and Lance’s humor was one of them.

“Ummmmmmm… yeah, gonna pass on that.” He shook his head, but he was grinning so Keith knew he wasn’t genuinely scared of Krolia, despite his jokes. “I like my bones unbroken, thanks.”

They kept chatting about Krolia and what she liked and didn’t about Earth, and that led to a discussion of how Ezor and Zethrid were fitting in with the Garrison staff after so long working exclusively with the Blade. From there the conversation drifted to the kind of stories about missions that he usually shared with Shiro.

Lance seemed to know exactly how to ask questions so that Keith talked. Now that he’d developed some level of immunity to how _hot_ and _touchable but untouchable_ Lance was in this setting, the lessons were actually… fun.

He had to keep reminding himself that Lance was just helping out a friend, though. This much time alone with Lance made it really easy to just… bask… in the attention and the company. 

Lance had a way of making you feel like the most interesting person in the world. Like he thought you hung the moon. It was… _dangerous._ Just like the supportive and tender sides of him were dangerous, this fascinated _warmth_ he radiated was potentially lethal to Keith’s heart.

But it was sooo easy to forget that with the music and Lance moving him around the dancefloor- all smiles and fond laughter and teasing comments. Just gliding around the room together, talking and laughing with Lance occasionally spinning out and back or making a face and doing some _serious dance steps_ that Keith was actually managing to mimic and keep up with.

Sometimes it felt like he could do this forever.

He was making Lance laugh with stories about Kosmo when his friend grinned at him, flushed and breathless from all the giggling. “Hey, you remember that dip I taught you? Wanna give it a shot?”

“What?” 

“The dip… it’s one of the toughest parts of the choreo… if we give it a shot, then we _actually_ _practiced_ some of the hard stuff and you can stop stressing about wasting time.”

“Ummm…” Panic churned in his gut, sending out icy tendrils that snarled up in the warm, fuzzy happiness he’d been experiencing. “The dip. Right.” He could do this. Literally all he had to do was _not drop Lance_ and it would be over. Like… five seconds and it was done. “Yeah… I can do the dip.”

“Awesome!” Lance’s whole face lit up with glee and Keith’s heart did that caged bird thing again, fluttering around in his chest like it was trying to escape. God, if it meant getting Lance to look _that happy_ he could do pretty much anything!

Before he could even manage to doubt himself, Lance was counting down the beats and Keith adjusted his hold and did the little pivot and bend and…

Holy shit!

_Holy shit!_

It fucking worked!

Right hands clasped, Keith’s left splayed at the small of Lance’s back, holding his weight, they swooped low and then back upright in one smooth movement!

Lance let out a whoop but didn’t let them falter in their dancing, keeping him from ruining the progress he’d made with rapid fire praise and teasing. It wasn’t until the song ended that Lance let them take a moment to celebrate. He caught Keith up in a hug and shook him a little, both of them laughing themselves breathless.

“Guess what?” Lance panted after a few moments.

“I nailed the dip?” he answered through laughter.

“Well, yeah, _obviously_ … but you did the entire routine, Keith! You didn’t even notice.”

“Fuck off- I did not!” Laughter died on his lips, replaced by shock. Lance had to be fucking with him. Right?

Right??

“Seriously, dude. You’ve run through the basic routine without flourishes twice, and then this time we did all the bells and whistles, even the dip. It wasn’t perfect, but you did it, All of it. You got this.”

“I got this,” he echoed, stunned.

“Yeah you do. I am a badass teacher! Told’ja.”

“Oh my God, are you going to be an asshole about this now?” he groaned.

“Me? Nah… But we’re on a roll… so, back to work and then when we are done, I’m taking you out for a celebratory ice cream!”

He was still grinning like an idiot and humming the song that would be played at the wedding when Acxa got back to their room that night. She gave him shit for it, but he couldn’t make himself care much.

After that breakthrough, the lessons flew. They still practiced every day. Still followed their usual routine of combining the dancing with conversation. But now, when they were done, they almost always either ran wedding-related errands or just hung out for a while. 

Keith hated it as much as he loved it...

...and he really loved it.

They’d never gone so long without blowing up at each other before. They’d never spent so much time together before. 

It was wonderful, but Keith’s need to touch Lance wasn’t abating. If anything, it was getting worse. The dancing had made him more comfortable with the proximity and casual way that Lance kind of hung off his friends. Keith itched to pull him a little closer, hang on to every contact just a little longer. To take the ‘just buds’ rough-housing and banter and nudge it into more carnal territory. He ached to kiss him, breathe him in, hold him tight and never let go.

It was a torturous balancing act, but Keith managed it… it just kind of felt like succeeding was slowly killing him. 

He kept reminding himself that everything would change and go back to ‘normal’ after the wedding. It helped.

A bit.

It kept him grounded and prevented him from reading too much into the way that Lance smiled at him, the electric crackle that chased every little touch, the _warmth_ in those blue, blue eyes.

It did less than nothing to slow the freefall his heart was doing, though. Sometimes he wondered if he would _ever_ stop falling for Lance. Was it even possible to keep falling for someone forever? Because he was pretty sure that after all this time he should have reaching maximum levels of smitten, but somehow every night when he got back to his room, he was even more gone on the guy.

It had gotten to the point that by the rehearsal dinner, he had to make an actual point to pay attention to the other guests… and even had to remind himself to focus on the men who were _actually getting married_ multiple times.

As Best Man, it was kind of fucking important that he stick with the program, after all. So, he hung around long past when he’d normally have bailed on a big formal dinner. He kept close to Shiro and Curtis and laughed at Iverson’s jokes and explained how he and Shiro had become friends (a sanitized version of the events that glossed right over the theft of Shiro’s car) about nine bazillion times. He’d made a point of _not_ letting his eyes drift to Lance every five seconds, _not_ turning his head in the direction of that familiar laugh, _not_ gushing about their dance lessons like a middle schooler who just discovered hormones.

He’d even stayed after Shiro and Curtis left, shooing them off to get some rest with promises to ensure the waitstaff were tipped properly and everything was locked up. He’d had every intention of heading back to his shitty little room and falling into bed and conking out the minute he was able to. He knew that things were going to be crazy all day for the wedding and now that there was a decent chance that he wasn’t going to actually ruin everything by botching the dance routine, he was starting to stress out a bit about the rest of his duties.

Unfortunately, the universe had been real quick to remind him that he was Keith Kogane and not someone whose life cooperated with his plans in any way, shape, or form.

“So… the place is kind of a mess,” Lance said as he opened the door to his temporary quarters on base. Which was stupid, because he knew Lance well enough to know that he was kind of a neat freak… unlike Pidge who lived in absolute chaos.

“I won’t judge,” he laughed, fighting a surge of pointless nerves, “you’ve been busy as hell helping Shiro… and you are the one doing me a favor.”

“It’s not a big deal, Keith.” Lance was staying with Veronica, and Acxa was staying with Keith, all of them assigned to the block of rooms that the Garrison had set aside for out of town guests of the wedding. By the time the rehearsal dinner had wrapped up, Veronica and Acxa were acting like kids on prom night and headed to the repurposed dorm room that Keith was supposed to be sleeping in. The one that contained a closet, two dressers, and two twin beds that were all of three feet from each other. “I figured you’d want to give them their privacy. That’s why I waited so I could give you a heads up that you were likely to find a sock hanging on your doorknob or whatever.”

“Still, I appreciate it.” Lance fell into step beside Keith, shrugging out of the very nice charcoal suit jacket he’d worn to dinner. The motion showcased his strong shoulders and the crisp white of his dress shirt made his skin look so good. Keith couldn’t help but stare, barely managing to tear his eyes away before he got busted. Lance’s room was an exact mirror of his own, except for the shockingly large array of toiletries cluttering up the surface of one of the dressers.

“I’ve been sleeping in the one on the left, but I’m fine with switching if it makes a difference to you.” Lance hung his jacket in the closet and toed out of his shoes. “I can hang your stuff and loan you a t-shirt and shorts or whatever.”

“Yeah, sure. That… I’d appreciate that.” Lance pulled a couple of hangers out of the closet and then crossed to the dresser. After a moment of rummaging, he located a pair of jersey shorts and a black muscle shirt. “Thanks. The right is fine with me. I’m not picky.”

When he returned from getting changed in the adjoining bathroom, Lance was in a pair of loose-fitting cotton pajama pants that left very little to the imagination. He was sitting on the left bunk, leaning against the wall with a laptop balanced on his knees. “Hey… It’s gonna take me a while to wind down enough to fall asleep. Will it bug you if I watch a movie? I can use ear buds or whatever.”

“What movie?”

“Dunno yet… was just looking at the options. Did you know they have a common media folder now? Just a big ass folder of all these movies that anyone on the wifi can watch! Some of these things are still in theaters! They didn’t have this shit when we were students! I am very angry on behalf of sixteen year old me who had to break curfew to see anything that was still in theaters!”

“Iverson isn’t teaching cadets anymore either,” he pointed out. 

“Man, the little shits have no idea how easy they’ve got it.” Lance patted the mattress beside him, scooching over to make room and turning the screen toward him.

Before he could think better of it, Keith found himself sitting beside him. Close enough that he could feel the heat rising from all that bare skin, smell the nice cologne that lingered in the air. You’d think after all those dance lessons, he’d have developed some kind of immunity to the way he always ended up reacting to Lance… but noooo… he seemed to have only gotten weaker for the guy. Before he could say or do something he would really, really regret, Keith forced himself to focus on the screen, skimming over the list. “Cancun Cannibals? Is that the remake of that old B movie that used to come on at like three in the morning?”

“Oh man… yeah! I think it is! I used to love that movie- poor Hunk would always get nightmares. I’ve heard good things about the remake. Supposedly, they went old school, all practical effects and make-up. You wanna check it out?”

“Hell yeah! I am so down to watch some cheesy carnage!” 

Before he knew it, Lance had the bedding pulled up over both of them ‘for authenticity’, whatever that meant… and the laptop propped up on his bent knees, fiddling with the angle of the screen. 

The movie was every bit as over the top and predictable as he expected. He loved B movies. Thought they were hilarious and loved to openly mock them as he watched. Lance, it turned out, enjoyed them in a very different way. 

He enjoyed them ‘like rollercoasters- the whole point is to get scared!’. Which was fine. Keith wasn’t going to police how someone enjoyed a movie- that was the dumbest, pettiest shit he could think of. So, yeah, Lance’s adorable little yelps and shrieks at the gore and the jumpscares were… fine.

It was _totally fine_.

Except…

The first good scare he’d tried to pull the blanket over his face (so cute) and nearly knocked the laptop to the floor, so he’d switched tactics. Which was how Keith found himself with an armful of Lance (so adorable), his face pressed into his chest (so tempting) or tucked into the curve of Keith’s neck (downright torturous) every time the movie whittled down the number of coeds on spring break. 

Which was often.

He felt like he might _ignite_ before the movie ended. So, he covered… he’d gotten pretty good at that over the last couple of weeks. He chuckled at Lance’s antics, teased him about the bad script and terrible acting that was getting to him, playfully offered to turn the movie off ‘if it’s too much for you’. It earned him a few joking swats to the shoulder, but it kept him sane.

The big finale was _legitimately scary_ though, and Lance did _not_ let it slide when he realised that Keith was dropping his head from time to time so he wouldn’t have to see what was happening on the screen.

“You can’t tell me when the gross parts are over if you aren’t watching,” he muttered into Keith’s clavicle.

“I’m watching,” he argued (lied), “just… checking on you.”

“Yeah right,” Lance tipped his face up, taking Keith by surprise when their noses bumped. “See? Head down, eyes closed… you’re full of it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about Lance,” he argued feebly, already getting lost in the way the flickering light from the movie danced on Lance’s skin and lit up his eyes.

“I know you better than you think,” Lance whispered an instant before leaning up, closing the distance between them to press a kiss to his lips.

Keith froze.

What was happening right now??

Was Lance drunk? 

Keith hadn’t noticed him drinking an unusual amount at dinner, but there had been a lot of toasts… that had been ages ago, though, and he hadn't been acting like he was impaired in any way… so…

Did that mean…

“Keith?”

“Mmm?” God, he was so gorgeous. This couldn’t be real.

Right?

“I’ve known you a really long time,” Lance whispered, dragging his thumb over Keith’s bottom lip and fraying the tenuous hold that Keith had on himself. “I know you want me…”

“Lance… I…” The words died on his tongue. They were too much. Too scary. ‘Want’ didn’t come close to the truth. It was so much more than that.

“Yeah, I know,” he smiled… a smile that Keith had never seen before. Not flirty and playful, or cocky… just… knowing and… dark… but _warm_ somehow. He shifted just enough that he could close the laptop and toss it onto the other bed. “I want you, too, Keith.”

This was such a bad idea. 

He wasn’t wired for casual hook-ups. He’d figured that out ages ago. He… wasn’t like Lance. 

He didn’t just _want_ him. He _loved_ him! He was so in love with Lance and Lance was…

What he was offering…

It could do _so much_ damage when it ended…

But…

It was the closest Keith was ever going to get to what he wanted.

“You’re sure?” he asked, somehow managing not to let his self-control completely disintegrate in the face of such temptation.

Lance nodded, “it’s been so hard to stay focused on those quiznaking lessons… the way you look at me… damn, Keith… your eyes…”

“Kiss me again.”

This time, when Lance’s lips found his, he let himself react, let himself enjoy it. His hands slid over Lance’s back, skimming over the bared skin to pull him closer. The kiss was sweet, tentative… for all of thirty seconds. 

There’d just been too many denied opportunities, too many frustrated impulses, for sweet and tentative. 

The instant Lance’s lips parted for him and their tongues touched, the kiss ignited like a cherry bomb, the short fuse setting off an explosion of hunger in them both. Keith groaned, a tremor rolling through him as Lance pinned him to the bed. Their legs slotted together, hips grinding together- already desperate for the friction.

Lance’s fingers found their way into Keith’s hair, twisting the soft strands until the sharp sting of it made him gasp. “Fuck,” he groaned, using his grip to pull Keith’s head back so he could kiss and nibble at the line of his throat.

_Holy shit_ , that felt good! His nails dug into the strong muscles of Lance’s back as he rocked up into the solid weight of him. 

His breath fell from his lips in ragged pants, Lance’s name a hoarse, needy, whispered litany. It was like he needed to say it, hear it, for him to believe this was really happening. He was really in Lance’s bed. That was really Lance’s mouth on his throat. Lance’s weight pressing him back into the mattress. Lance’s cock grinding insistently against his own.

He hitched his leg up slightly, changing the pitch and roll of their hips and getting a stuttering groan from Lance as a reward. It felt so damn good. So fucking amazing. He increased the pace, hands sliding down to finally, _finally_ clutch at Lance’s ass after _weeks_ of denying the impulse.

The stinging tug at his hair relented, a hand grasping at his waist as Lance caught him in another hungry kiss. Sloppy and demanding and full of a hunger that seemed to match his own.

Heat spread through his bones, making him feel feverish. His forehead pressed into Lance’s shoulder, breath shaking out of him with each desperate, eager stroke. “Fffffuck,” he panted, “holy fuck… you’re so… ha… ha… holy fuck… so hard…”

Lance chuckled, rolling onto his back and taking Keith with him so he ended up straddling him. “Wasn’t kidding about wanting you,” he muttered, hands sliding up his thighs, bunching the fabric of his borrowed boxers in the crease of his thighs and moving beyond them. He changed the angle of his left hand, thumb dragging along the aching length of Keith’s cock where it was tucked up against his belly, angled toward the jut of bone at his hip.

He watched Lance’s face as he touched him, mesmerized by the blatant need in his eyes, the reverent expression on his face. God, he was beautiful like this! There was a tug on the hem of his shirt and Lance quirked one of those expressive brows at him in question. 

Yes.

Yup.

So down with that plan!

He peeled out of his shirt, tossing it onto the other bed with the laptop. Lance made a soft noise and curled upwards pressing molten little kisses over Keith’s chest. “Don’t wanna rush you,” he breathed between kisses, “or… push… Jesus, you’re so hot, Keith…”

Every brush of Lance’s mouth against his skin felt like fire. Like lightning. Hot, electric jolts that left him quaking and clutching at Lance’s shoulders. “Not…” he gasped, licking his lips, “not… rushing… me… Lannnce… want you...”

“God, your _eyes_...” Lance whispered, surging up to kiss Keith again. Smooth, nimble fingers danced over his back, tracing out little swirling patterns or digging into the muscles as they lost themselves in kiss after kiss.

This was really happening.

They were really gonna do this!

After all those years, finally, _finally_ he had Lance in his arms and it wasn’t because one of them was injured and the other was dragging them to safety. It wasn’t on a damn dancefloor. 

He was in _Lance’s bed_. 

That was _Lance_ writhing under him; craning into Keith’s touch, his kisses; panting his name and… it was so much _better_ than he’d ever imagined.

...and Keith had imagined _plenty_!

“Keith,” he broke the kiss, bumping their noses together cutely before brushing Keith’s hair back from his face, “we don’t have to… go that far… but… I’ve got… condoms… lube… if…”

“Yeah,” Keith cut in, “definitely wanna… go that far…” He had no idea what mysterious circumstances had aligned in the stars that had led to this, but there was no way he was going to let it pass without making the most of it! If this was the only time he ever got to touch Lance like this, he was going to make sure it was… everything. 

Because… Lance was _everything_ to him.

“Yeah?” Lance’s smile was… almost shy. Unsure. “Because… I don’t want you to think this is… like… all or nothing… we have options…”

“Lance? Do you want to fuck or not?”

“Christ, you are so fucking blunt sometimes,” he laughed, dropping his forehead to Keith’s shoulder. “Classic Keith…” His hands slid down Keith’s back to grab his ass and jerk him closer, making Lance’s straining, leaking cock twitch eagerly against Keith’s belly, “want you so bad… you taste so good…” He nipped at Keith’s earlobe, the combination of that and his heated words making Keith shiver, “sooo… yes, I really, really… _really_ … want to fuck… among other things.”

“We’re way overdressed for that,” Keith pointed out. 

_Technically_ , they weren’t. 

_Technically_ , the loose-fitting shorts could be bunched up to one side to create access, and the waistband of those flimsy, clinging cotton pants could be pushed down. 

_Technically_ , they had options… but sloppy, hurried ‘push the clothes out of the way’ sex was not what Keith wanted. He hoped it wasn’t what Lance wanted either. 

Keith wanted the kind of sex that seared itself into his memory forever. The kind that left echoing ghosts of touches and kisses in its wake. The kind that he’d be able to think back on and remember what it felt like to bask in the attention of this man who owned his heart for years to come. Because… he suspected this was a one-time thing… and he needed to make sure he gorged on it, got his fill of Lance, _tonight_ … because it would probably have to last him a lifetime. 

Hungry, desperate rutting could be hot, sure. But it wasn’t the kind of sustenance he was craving.

“That’s an easy fix,” Lance quipped, eyebrows waggling. It was so unexpectedly silly and playful that Keith burst out laughing. “Love your laugh… you should laugh more,” he whispered, and then his hands were cupping Keith’s face and slipping into his hair and Lance was kissing him until he saw stars and somehow felt like he was melting and burning to a crisp at the same time.

They fell back to the mattress together, losing themselves in kisses and caresses that somehow felt completely different to Keith than the ones that had started this encounter. Typical Lance- mercurial and utterly enchanting in his unpredictability. Somehow he’d never lost that boyish ability to shift from heated to playful to passionate in the space of a heartbeat, every new mood just as riveting as the last.

He was so caught up in it all that he barely noticed when the shorts were whisked away- even though he’d had to lift his hips and kick free of the fabric. He scarcely registered when Lance had shifted away to free himself of his cotton sleep pants, because he’d been so distracted by sucking little purple marks into being all over Lance’s chest. 

He definitely noticed that they were both naked when Lance gathered him up in his arms and they tangled together again, though. All that bare skin felt electric, arousal crackling through him like a current; little shocks of desire snapping everywhere they were in contact. 

He loved the way his name sounded on Lance’s lips when he finally let himself indulge in every little impulse to touch him. When he finally stopped holding back from kissing him, from trailing his tongue over all that golden skin, from sinking his teeth into those tempting cords of muscle just hard enough to make Lance gasp and tremble.

Keith adored all the ways Lance’s hands felt on him: light and playful, or rough and hungry, or gentle and reverent. Adored the murmured compliments and pet names… because _God_ those little pet names were potent and _did things_ to his heart… and Lance seemed to have an endless supply of them in English and Spanish and Altean… even some Galran ones that were especially powerful.

He’d never really trusted his ability to say the right thing. It had gotten better as he’d worked with first Voltron, and then the Blades, because he’d had to make speeches and give reports… but… one on one stuff? That was tougher- especially if he had to say anything that made him feel exposed... vulnerable. But he was stripped down with Lance, in more ways than just being bare of clothes… and the words… they just fell from his lips. 

He hardly even noticed what he was saying. 

Which was good- because he was sure, _absolutely certain_ that if he paid attention, if he thought about it too much, they’d die on his lips. They choke themselves off in his throat. They’d freeze in his chest, locking up his breath and ruining everything.

So, he just… didn’t even try to filter them… and he could tell from Lance’s reaction- all those hitched breaths and shuddery moans and big, bottomless blue eyes filled with _everything_ \- that that was soooo the right decision. Years and years of things he’d censored himself from saying, finally voiced. Whispered into the dark, intimate spaces between his lips and Lance’s skin.

“Keith… fuck… you’re killing me, bri’ohm,” Lance groaned, and Keith… just... melted. 

Bri’ohm.

_Bri’ohm_. Did Lance have any idea what that meant? How rare it was for that term to be used outside of a mated pair? Did he _know_ he was calling Keith his _soulmate_ ? Was he clueless to how hearing that filled Keith with… all the good, pure, romantic, precious things he’d always thought he could never have? “I need… I need… I _neeeed_...”

“Mmm?” Kissing and nibbling a path up Lance’s thigh, because _goddamn_ those fucking legs of his, Keith smiled against his skin. “What do you need, bri’zuna?” If Lance was going to use bri’ohm, then Keith was going to reply properly: bri’ohm literally translated to soul’s blade, bri’zuna meant soul’s scabbard. 

Even if Lance didn’t know its significance, Keith did… and even if Lance didn’t truly mean it, _Keith did_. So, he wasn’t going to let possibly the only opportunity to use it and mean it go to waste. 

Because he loved him. 

He loved him so much, was so, so, so in love with Lance.

“Yooouuu,” he whined and Keith’s heart just… burst. “Your mouth… or your ass… or your cock… I neeeed… I need…”

“Condoms?” he purred, crawling over that perfectly delectable body. He braced his elbows on either side of Lance’s head, his own body held just above him. Close, but not really touching. So close. Close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off of Lance’s flushed, eager body. Close enough that the head of Keith’s aching cock brushed against his satiny skin in time with their heavy breathing. He was sure that if he settled his weight on Lance, he’d get so caught up in the feeling of skin on skin that he’d forget what he was trying to ask. “Where are they, tre-zhar?”

Lance shook, arching up to try to close the distance between them. “Umm…” He blinked, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to focus and if knowing that Keith had been the one to do that to him, to make his eyes so stormy and blown out wasn’t just the hottest fucking thing… “Drawer,” he panted, nodding to the nightstand between the bed and the wall, “lube, too…”

“Kay…” Keith twisted, dropping onto the narrow mattress beside Lance and rolling onto his side. As he reached for the drawer, Lance nipped at the muscles of his back, setting off a fireworks display of bright, sparkling pleasure in his skin. “How do you want to do this?”

“Mmm??” His fingers played along the line of Keith’s ribs and down over the dips and bumps of his abs to graze over his cock. Keith moaned, hips stuttering into the touch, desperate for more, but Lance didn’t stop. He trailed a torturously delicate path down the shaft to cup and fondle Keith’s balls. The change in sensation was almost too much for Keith, a full-body shudder making him jolt and twitch. Lance’s voice was so goddamn fucked out, so goddamn _wrecked_ already, and they hadn’t even gotten to the main event yet. “Ohhh… mm… the fucking?”

The somehow wholly unique sound of condom wrappers crinkling seemed weirdly loud as he rolled back against him, not having enough room to do much more than that since Lance had flattened himself to Keith’s back, his cock nestled up against Keith’s tailbone and grinding slightly as he continued to fondle Keith’s balls. “Yuh-huh…”

Lance took a moment to settle his breathing, Keith could _hear_ the effort he put into gathering his thoughts. “I like both… but I swear to fucking God... the thought of being inside you has been torturing me since that first lesson… you okay with that?”

“Soooo-ohhh okay with that,” he answered on a sigh, melting back against Lance. He could feel Lance smile against the back of his neck between kisses. Such a small, simple thing but it made Keith’s heartbeat trip all over itself.

Hands settled on his hips, pulling him closer to meet the teasing grind of Lance’s cock against his ass- a hint of what was to come, but nowhere close to what he was craving. He wriggled his hips, seeking more friction and Lance bit into his shoulder, making him hiss and jolt. Hot, sharp kisses trailed down the length of his spine, the cleft of his ass, and then Lance was lifting Keith’s leg, supporting the weight effortlessly, and the first hot swipe of his tongue over the sensitive nerves at his entrance made his brain shut off.

By the time Lance’s latex-sheathed cock was sliding into him, Keith was a squirming, demanding mess. Because… of fucking course Lance was good with his mouth. He should have known… but… It had been _so long_ since he’d been with anyone… he’d almost forgotten how good this could feel… and this was… it was _Lance_. All those years of loving him from afar, and now… and now…

...now…

“Shoulda known,” Lance hissed, dragging Keith’s legs up over his shoulders, “you’d be like… catching lightning… fuck…” He shifted his knees, getting the angle just right and running his hands over Keith’s feverish skin. 

Like he couldn’t get enough of him.

“Fuuuuuck,” he moaned, rolling his torso so he could sink further down on the cock that was splitting him open so perfectly.

“Holy shit… Keith… bri’ohmmmm...” He leaned forward, folding Keith practically in half to kiss him again. Keith managed to pry his hands off the headboard so he could grab at Lance’s shoulders… at _his lover’s_ shoulders… clinging to the kiss. “You’re so hot,” Lance whispered against his lips, “so gorgeous, bri’ohm… feel so good…”

“Bri’zuna,” he answered, because he couldn’t _not_ respond in kind. It was impossible. Impossible to contain everything he was feeling. Impossible to hold back. “Harder… morrre… fffffuck… Lannnnce… moremoremoremore…”

No matter how clearly you thought you remembered it, there was something about good sex… _really good sex_ that was just… astounding. Something about it that never failed to surprise you with the intensity of the pleasure. 

This was more than just that, though.

It had been easy to convince himself that there was no way that sex with Lance would ever measure up to the fantasy he’d been building for… most of his adult life. But, he’d been wrong.

This was better.

This was so much better.

Lance was… _everything_ he’d never known he needed. 

The perfect balance of tender and rough. Sweet, gentle kisses dusting over his skin and murmured compliments that felt like confessed secrets. Hard, driving, needy thrusts that rattled through him and set off lights behind his eyelids. Hands that grabbed at him and moved him with a strength that he was sure was leaving delicious little bruises to mark their passing. Rumbled demands and encouragements that were every bit as filthy as the squelching, slapping impacts of their bodies. The relentless thud of the headboard against the wall, as Lance traced fingertips over Keith’s face and they locked eyes.

It was amazing...

… and dangerous.

Keith couldn’t hold anything back when Lance touched him. He couldn’t protect himself from those kisses. Couldn’t hide from those eyes.

And Lance… he touched him like Keith was precious. He whispered such romantic and desperate things into Keith’s ear; dropped such potent endearments to his skin, inked into the flesh with lips and teeth and tongue.

Lance’s eyes… were mesmerizing and vulnerable and… it was… just so easy to let himself _believe_ that this was more than it was.

Sooo easy to imagine that it meant as much to Lance as it did to him.

...and _that_ was more dangerous to Keith than a Zaiforge cannon.

He knew that.

But when Lance moaned his name as he came, it sounded like…

When he peppered little kisses over Keith’s face as he caught his breath, Keith could have sworn it was with…

When he smiled, and called Keith the Galran equivalent of _soulmate_ before slipping free of his body, it felt like…

When he wrapped his lips around Keith’s cock and used his mouth and fingers to wring a soul-shattering orgasm out of him, swallowing him down with those blue eyes glazed over in pleasure and glued to Keith’s own, they seemed to be so full of…

Love.

He wanted it to be true so bad that he was seeing it where it didn’t exist… and he knew that. He’d known that all along. _’I want you, too.’_ Lance had said. He’d been clear. Keith had known that this was about… attraction… about… _wanting_. 

Not love.

The wedding was tomorrow, and then there was a brunch thing the following morning and then Keith was headed back to space and Lance was headed back to Cuba… and Keith could nurse his broken heart and throw himself into the job until it stopped hurting so much… and he could go right back to pretending he wasn’t in love with his friend. Pretending he hadn’t been in love with him for years already.

He was so used to pretending. An old pro.

So, when Lance slipped from the bed to dispose of the condom and clean up, Keith pretended to fall asleep. And when Lance climbed back into bed and curled around him, spooning against his back and pressing a little kiss to his shoulder? 

Keith pretended it didn’t break his heart.

* * *

The wedding was beautiful. Of course it was, Shiro and Curtis had planned it so carefully and everyone they knew had come together to make sure it went off without a hitch. Wedding photos had taken for-freaking-ever, but Keith had gotten through it. He’d stood there, in his tux, between Shiro and Lance and he’d smiled. He’d smiled through all the cheesy ‘funny’ pictures Curtis and Shiro wanted: the groomsmen (him, Lance, Matt, Hunk, and Coran) squaring up against the groomsmaids (Veronica, Acxa, Nadia, Ina, and Pidge) like they were about to break into a brawl; all of them squealing exaggeratedly over the wedding band on Shiro’s hand; all of them flashing their custom, color-coded Voltron socks (Pidge’s being little skinny things that were hidden in her high heeled shoes, which she kicked off for the picture)... every last one of them.

Shiro looked like he was going to burst from happiness, and there was no way that Keith was going to put a damper on his best friend’s wedding day. So, he smiled and laughed and did everything the Best Man was expected to do. He gave his speech and made his toast. He took part in the conversation at the head table. He joked around with Hunk, and teased Pidge, and bantered with Lance. 

Just like old times. 

Just like always.

When the food was cleared away and Curtis and Shiro had their first dance, he let himself steal a glance at Lance. He looked so handsome in that tux, beaming at the grooms and whispering with Veronica. Happy. Comfortable. Excited. It was good to see. 

He wanted Lance to be happy.

And he was… so… Keith was… happy. 

Keith was happy. 

It hurt, but it was okay. Better than okay. He’d had… one really, really great night with Lance… and now his best friend was married and his favorite people were all together, celebrating… and Lance was happy… so, Keith was happy. Counting his blessings… because he had those now. 

Blessings were a thing that existed in his life and he appreciated them.

The music shifted, and Keith recognized the lead-in to their cue to join the new couple on the dancefloor. Nerves kicked up, putting him on edge. He could do this. It had taken time, but he’d learned the routine… and no one would be watching him, anyway. All eyes would be on the newlyweds.

“As long as you aren’t the worst on the floor, you are golden,” Veronica teased, catching his hand. “Ready?”

“I feel like we should have practiced this together more,” he muttered, leading her out onto the floor.

One, two, cha-cha-cha… his body fell into step without him even thinking about it. Huh. How about that?

Veronica smiled at him, the glint in her eyes so much like Lance’s when he was about to cause trouble. “I suggested that,” she said easily, sweeping away from him in a spin that brought her right back into his arms again. “Lance wouldn’t hear it. No way was anyone horning in on your rehearsal time.”

“He took the lessons pretty seriously,” he agreed distractedly, trying to count out the beat and remember the routine and the ‘blocking’ that Lance had taught him so he didn’t run into any of the other dancers. 

She snorted, “yup. That’s what that was about. Teaching.”

“What?”

“Nothing… don’t mind me… just,” she shook her head, “sister stuff. Not important. The wedding was beautiful.”

“Yeah, it really was. Shiro’s over the moon.”

“Curtis, too. That’s the important thing, right?” She sighed, her expression wistful.

“You guys are probably next, huh?” He smiled at her, remembering Lance’s comments about Veronica and Acxa.

Her eyes widened, something like panic blooming in that familiar blue, “why? Has Acxa said anything?”

“What?” Crap! Had he screwed up?? “No. Noooo… nothing like that. Just… you’ve been together a while now. That’s all.”

“Mmm… that’s not always the best predictor though.” She flattened against him and he shifted his hold so he could dip her and bring her back up to her feet in a graceful swoop-thing. “Nice job!”

“Thanks… that was the hard part, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah… hey… nope! No looking at your feet. Eyes up here, handsome. Don’t you dare make my brother look like a bad teacher.”

Shit! She was right. If he screwed up, most people would blame him… but Shiro and Curtis might think Lance had slacked off with teaching him. That… was _not_ something Keith was okay with. “M’not going to make him look bad.”

“I know you’re not. You’d never do that to him. So… did you have a nice nap this afternoon?” She was wearing contacts for the wedding, which was odd for her, but Keith could _swear_ that if she’d had her glasses on at the moment, the light would have glinted off the lenses when she said that… like something out of an anime. That little smirk of hers just made him even more certain.

“It’s… uh… been a busy couple of weeks,” he answered, feeling his cheeks flush.

“Uh-huh… So… you got plenty of sleep last night then?”

“Yup. Yeah. Slept like a log.” That was _technically_ not a lie. Once he’d fallen asleep, he’d slept better than he had in years… right up until he’d woken up when his back got cold and rolled over to find Lance awake and they’d… uh… tired each other out again… a couple of times... If he thought too much about it, he could still almost feel the heat of Lance wrapped around his cock, those amazing legs of his tight around Keith’s torso, hands in Keith’s hair, moaning into endless kisses, eyes bright with… 

Nope.

Not what he should be thinking about right now!

The point was, he’d slept great. He’d just also had a far more… active… night than he was accustomed to.

She laughed, shaking her head at him, “you two are not discreet, you know that, right? I went back to that room this morning, remember? My bed was not slept in, there were condom wrappers in the trash, and… woah… okay, breathe, Keith!”

He was breathing.

Right?

Yeah. For sure. 

Definitely breathing. Maybe a little fast and shallow, but his lungs were definitely moving air.

“Hey, calm down- I’m not going to tell anyone.” She rested her hand against his cheek, cool and soothing. “Just… don’t hurt my brother, and no one will hear a peep from me about it… except Acxa, because I already told her.”

He fought the urge to groan. Acxa knew?!?! He was never going to hear the end of that now! How much was left to this damn dance? He suddenly felt a strong need for a stiff drink and some fresh air.

“Sorry… sorry… I shouldn’t have said anything… I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“I’m not freaked out,” he squeaked, eyes widening in mortification at the noise. How much was left to this damn song?

“Ohhh-kay,” she drawled, “new subject! Did you really steal Shiro’s car the first day you met him?”

“Did I wha- where did you hear that?” He latched on to the topic shift, if for no other reason than so the blush he could feel burning his cheek would settle down.

“Mmm… sorry, keeping my source confidential on this one. Spiral is on the next count.”

“What? Shit!” Even with the warning, the change in Veronica’s movements almost messed him up. 

Almost… but not quite. Thankfully, Veronica had the hard part and she’d been dancing since childhood according to her brother. Pretty much all Keith had to do was keep up with her and make her look good. He suspected that the whole routine was designed to have all the impressive show-boaty stuff fall to one partner (in this case, the ‘follower’)- and then Shiro and Curtis matched them up so the weaker dancer took lead in each pair. 

That wasn't a complaint. Keith was inordinately glad he didn’t have to do the kind of shit Veronica did.

They’d been talking about something though. Something about- oh! “Yes… the first time I met Shiro, I _borrowed_ his car. There were no charges, so no theft.”

That made her snicker and roll her eyes at him. “Of course… so… what was the _hypothetical motive_ for the alleged theft?”

“The easy answer is a combo of being a delinquent and having poor impulse control,” he tried for a charming smirk, but couldn’t tell if he managed to pull it off.

“Ah, so _not_ to fuck up James meeting his hero for the first time. Got it.”

“What!?!? How did I mess that up? I just snuck out of the sim-test and- ohhh wait! _James Griffin_ told you I sto-uhh-borrowed Shiro’s car?” He shook his head, of course it was James.. He had no idea why he kept forgetting how close Veronica was to all the MFE pilots.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that. My sources are confidential… but _allegedly_ you timed the _alleged_ theft to coincide perfectly with the teacher introducing him to Shiro.”

“I had no way of knowing that! I was in the pilot seat with the whole damn class crowded around me!” Had Griffin been going around saying Keith was _that_ petty all this time?!?

Veronica’s eyes lit up the exact way Lance’s did when he was being a little shit. “Calm down there, Mister. It was… umm… holy crap, it is _really_ hard to refer to how long ago something happened with you guys. Let’s just stick with ‘it was a long time ago’, shall we?”

“I don’t like getting blamed for shit I didn’t do,” he muttered. 

“No one does, Keith,” she pointed out, “but I’m glad things didn’t play out that way. Good to know you weren’t a cruel kid.”

“Ummm okay? Why do _you_ care whether I-”

“Time to take a bow!” she quipped, spinning outward in something Lance had called ‘the fan’’, They both finished the move with their unjoined hands aloft. All of the dancers dropped into a soft bow, then broke apart to applaud the newlyweds. Shiro, being Shiro, and Curtis, being the kind of person that would choose to spend their life with Shiro, insisted on hugging all of them and thanking them, one by one before they would let anyone leave the dancefloor.

So, that took a while, and by the time he remembered that he’d been asking her a question, Veronica seemed to have disappeared into the celebration.

He milled around a bit, eventually settling into a conversation with his mother, Kolivan, and Matt. Whenever one of them would reference work, Matt would jump in to scold them about ‘shop talk’ at a wedding and insisted on changing the subject. Keith didn’t think he’d ever gone so long in conversation with Kolivan without talking about work. He liked Kolivan, he really did, but with Blades business off the acceptable topic list, things got pretty awkward, pretty quickly, and Keith excused himself to get a drink.

Thank fuck Shiro and Curtis had decided on an open bar. Keith suspected he’d spend more than he had planned if it had been a cash bar. He half-sat on the barstool, half-leaned on the bar itself and tried to decipher what was in “The Curtashi”, because Shiro was, apparently, the kind of person that had someone design a custom drink for his wedding and then decided its name should be a portmanteau of the grooms’ names.

He hadn’t even managed to decide whether the drink included alien booze or whether it was pure Earth alcohol when he felt a hand brush along the small of his back. The crackling eagerness that raced through him told him exactly who it was, even if he had no other senses feeding him information.

“Tag. You’re it,” Lance said with a flirty grin signaling the bartender to bring him a ‘Curtashi’ of his own and leaning against the bar.

So close.

So fucking hot.

If he’d thought that sleeping with Lance the night before would somehow ‘get Lance out of his system’ (which, for the record, he hadn’t believed), he’d be wrong.

The thought was laughably absurd now that he knew just how good the chemistry between them was, how great the sex was, how well they fit together in all senses of the word. He could barely hang on to a thought that wasn’t directly connected to lewd images Lance’s cologne stirred up. “What?”

Lance peered at him for a moment before shaking his head and laughing. “Nothing. You’re a hard man to find today, Keith.”

“Best Man,” he said in a rush, because it had felt like he’d have to _shove_ the air out of his chest so he could shape it into words. “Busy day… Yep. Crazy busy… because I’m the Best Man.”

“Ahhh, good. So, you’re _not_ avoiding me. Good to know, I was starting to worry.”

Oh, no, Keith had _definitely_ been avoiding Lance whenever possible all day. He didn’t want to come across as clingy, because no matter how important the night before had been to him, to Lance it had just been… some fun. A hook-up. Getting all clingy and needy would ruin everything. So, he’d wanted Lance to know that he could be cool and discreet. That things didn’t have to be _weird_ between them.

So, was Lance just cracking a joke? Or did he genuinely _worry_ about Keith avoiding him… and if so, _why_? Shouldn’t he be relieved? “Just busy,” he fibbed.

Lance inched closer, letting his gaze wander. “You look gorgeous in that tux… probably best that you were so busy,” his smile went smokey, “you’re very tempting. Hard to keep my hands to myself.”

_What?!?!_

Flirting. 

Lance was flirting with him! 

He nearly choked on his drink! The ability to speak just up and fucking fled. Try as he might, he just couldn’t make himself say anything in response to that. Lance’s eyebrow quirked speculatively, “Keith?”

“Mmm?” he managed around the deep drink he was taking of the signature cocktail… that was much stronger than he expected. Woah.

“Why are you panicking right now?” Lance asked, his voice level but instantly on high alert. “Is it the crowd? What’s going on?”

“I’m not panicking,” he argued. He was definitely panicking. He did _not_ know how he was supposed to react to this. Was Lance joking? Was he drunk? Was Keith supposed to roll his eyes and like, toss an olive at him or something? Was he supposed to flirt back? Tell him to fuck off? 

“Riiiight,” Lance drawled, those expressive brows drawing together an instant before Lance reached out and grabbed his hand. “C’mon… you obviously need some air.”

Keith was so stunned by the sudden shift that he barely managed to grab his drink before he let Lance drag him outside. They’d bypassed the prettily decorated patio that was designed for guests to get some air and ended up standing on the steps of some service entrance in a dark alley. The door clattered loudly as it swung shut and Lance leaned back against it. “There. Better?”

“Yeah,” he replied, because… weirdly… it _was_ better. He still had no idea what Lance was up to, but without the din of the crowd and the music, and without the jittery nerves he always got when he had to deal with strangers, that didn’t seem quite so awful.

Lance rolled his eyes, shaking his head at him, “I dunno why you never believe that I might know what I’m talking about when it comes to you. You are not that mysterious, Keith.”

“Huh?” He didn’t think he was mysterious. He thought he was pretty straight-forward. It was _other people_ that couldn’t seem to make sense of him.

“I know you,” Lance said, his voice soft. “I’ve known you for a long time. I can tell when you are getting frazzled… and I know you hate parties and galas and… you know… shit like wedding receptions. They stress you out.”

“Oh… it’s not that I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Not really. Just… I’m not used to anyone… paying attention, I guess.”

“Well, I do,” he took a sip of his own drink, “so… let’s back-up the conversation a bit. You’ve been dodging me today. Why?”

“I told you… I wasn’t… it was just Best Man stuff…”

“Don’t lie to me, Keith. I’m a big boy, I can handle it. Just tell me, so it doesn’t turn into some big mess that takes forever to sort out. I’m so sick of wasting time on shit like that.”

Sighing, he relented, “I just… I didn’t want to make things weird, okay?”

“Because of last night?” He didn’t move. Didn’t try to close the distance between them. Didn’t even reach out to touch him. Lance just stayed exactly where he was, his voice soft, expression curious.

Keith felt his heart crack like the ice in his drink, cold and frozen. Words were beyond him. He didn’t trust his voice, anyway. So, he just nodded, his focus shifting to Lance’s shoulder so he didn’t have to see the pity on his gorgeous face when he realized that their hook-up had meant so much more to Keith than it had to him.

“And avoiding me on the day of one of our best friend’s weddings when we are both groomsmen _isn’t_ making things weird in your mind? Fuck… of course it’s not. Sometimes I forget just how… solitary your life has been. Right. My fault. Keith, I don’t want you to dodge me.”

“I’m out here talking to you now, aren’t I?” He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding his face in his drink. If he hadn’t let Shiro convince him to pull his hair back, he’d have shaken it into his face, but he had, so the drink was his only real option.

“You know how people think that doing that with your arms is a way to create a barrier and keep people away? It’s not. That’s not the impulse that triggers it- especially not in people with backgrounds like yours.” Lance’s voice was soft and Keith could hear the shitty little landing-thing that they were standing on creak as he shifted around. “It’s an instinctive attempt to self-soothe.”

“Whatever. You’re an expert on body language now?”

“I know, like, _one_ talking point about tough guy bullshit. Hardly an expert. But… again… I _do_ know _you_ . Better than you ever give me credit for.” More creaking, and then a hand cupped his face, making Keith gasp, eyes flying up to Lance’s face because he hadn’t realized he’d moved. “So… let me guess… last night freaked you out… or… no. You thought last night freaked _me_ out and you were trying to act like it never happened… because… hmm… you didn’t want me to think it was a big deal for you?”

He just stared at Lance, not even knowing where to _start_ with any kind of response to that. 

“Okay… you aren’t telling me that I’m full of it, or have too high an opinion of myself, sooo… I’m going to say that means I’m right. Which means… you think that last night _wasn’t_ a big deal for me, huh?” Keith was pretty sure he hadn’t moved, but Lance nodded like he had, his eyes closing for a second on a sigh before opening again. “Fair enough. I can be the one to put myself out there… again. Thought I was pretty clear last night but…”

“You said you wanted me,” he said, surprising himself, because he hadn’t _planned_ on saying anything. “You said you knew I wanted you and that you wanted me, too.”

“That wasn’t _all_ I said, _bri’ohm_ ,” Lance whispered, thumb stroking against his jaw. “God, I’m rustier than I thought... after all that… you thought I just wanted a no-strings hook-up. You _get_ that my sister has been dating a Galra for years, right? That I speak the language pretty well?”

“Yeah? So?” Lance was so close, his voice so soft… velvety. His touch was so tender… intimate. He smelled so damn good. Keith could barely resist the impulse to kiss him, swamped by flashes of memories of the night before. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“So, I know the significance of bri’ohm, Keith. I’d never use it lightly… and I _know_ that you, of all people, wouldn’t throw around bri’zuna…” He tipped Keith’s face up, his eyes practically burning in the blue glow of the marks on his cheeks, “serves me right, really… should have spelled it out bluntly. You’re not really one for poetic sentimentality… so, I’ll do that now. Keith? I love you. When I said I wanted you… I meant I want you _the same way_ you want me. Not ‘I want sex’... ‘I want _you_.’ All of you. There isn’t a single part of you that I don’t want. Bri’ohm… soulsword… I thought it was so fitting for you.”

“You… you _love_ me?” Keith breathed, half convinced he was caught in some kind of false reality, like he’d experienced during the trials. Like maybe he was in the grip of visions that taunted him with everything he’d ever wanted but couldn’t have.

“Yeah, Mullet, I love you. Head over heels in love with you, bri’ohm.”

“Bri’zuna,” he whispered against Lance’s lips as he leaned in to kiss him. Just like the night before, the kiss ignited like a cherry-bomb. Lance crowded closer, pressing him up against the wall. The hand holding his drink rested on Lance’s shoulder, the other settling on his hip. Keith poured everything he felt into the kiss and it felt like Lance did, too. 

He’d never felt anything like this burning happiness that scorched its way through him. All because Lance loved him.

Lance _loved him_.

They were in love.

He lost himself in it. In the kisses and the love and the happiness. 

By the time Lance dragged him back into the reception and onto the dancefloor with husky-voiced promises for ‘later’, he was drunk on all of it. He laughed when Lance plucked a rose out of one of the table centerpieces, discarded their jackets and dramatically caught the stem in his mouth. He was still laughing when Lance positioned him just like he had during their dance lessons, waggled his eyebrows at him suggestively and said, just like he had so many times already, “watch the hips.”

The laughing settled down to a warm giddiness as they moved together to the music. Even Lance’s over-the-top antics filled him with a kind of fond joy that was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. One song bled into the next and he barely noticed anything beyond the man in his arms and the way they moved together to the music. 

Eventually, Romelle dragged him away, playfully scolding Lance for ‘hogging him’ and he danced with her before excusing himself to get another drink. Lance was dancing with Pidge, the two of them doing some kind of intricate hand motions he vaguely recognized from social media and laughing their asses off as one or the other screwed it up. It made him smile to see Lance having so much fun.

“Looks like I missed something important,” Shiro said when he found Keith at the bar. “I’ve never seen you spend that much time on the dancefloor and…” He smirked, “pretty sure you two were in your own little world out there.”

“Shut-up, Shiro,” he grumbled, cheeks burning.

“Awww you’re blushing! That’s so sweet!”

“I said shut-it, Shiro… There’s still time for me to ruin this wedding, you know!”

“What are you going to do? Hotwire the limo?”

“I mean… I _could._ You should know better than to tempt me… but I was thinking more along the lines of some big dramatic drunken speech full of embarrassing information. Lance thought the story about your attempt at homebrew was pretty funny…”

“Keith! You wouldn’t! There are interstellar dignitaries here!” Shiro feigned shock, but his eyes were glinting and Keith knew that despite his claims, there was pretty much nothing that could ruin this day for his friend. He didn’t really have the heart to mess with the wedding anyway. Shiro had been through so much, the guy deserved to be happy.

Still… “Go ahead… just try me. See if I wouldn’t.”

“I suspect that good’ol Loverboy Lance, the hopeless romantic of our little team would be very upset if anything were to ruin this reception,” Shiro countered.

Keith’s blush returned, and he cleared his throat, eyes flicking to Lance on the dancefloor. “Mmm… he is that, isn’t he?”

“You told him.”

Keith shook his head, “didn’t have to.”

“Well, it’s about time one of you spoke up. That was getting painful for everyone. Let me buy you a drink- to congratulate you.” He gestured to the bartender, another of the signature cocktails was set in front of him and Shiro’s champagne was topped up. “To love,” he said holding up his drink.

Rolling his eyes at his friend, Keith clinked his glass and took a swing of his drink. “Fine! To love… You are so cheesy… and it’s an open bar, jackass.”

“Right, so I’ve been buying your drinks all night. What an awesome, generous friend you’ve got in me!” Spreading his arms, Shiro beamed at him. “Seriously though… you and Lance, huh?”

“God, you are such a gossip…”

“Shove it, Keith. I’ve had a front row seat to you mooning over him for years. I’ve fucking earned the right to give you shit now!”

“Hey! Check it out! The guest of honor!” Lance appeared out of nowhere, slapping Shiro on the back good-naturedly before pulling him into a hug. “Congrats again, man!”

“Thanks… and thanks so much for everything you did, Lance. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course! That’s what friends are for, Shiro,” Lance answered as he released the hug and settled easily against Keith’s side. “No thanks needed. S’getting late, Mullet. You almost at your limit for dealing with people?”

“I’m fine,” he replied, looping his arm around Lance’s waist and pointedly ignoring the smug little noise that Shiro made. “No rush.”

“Mmm… well, I definitely want to cut out of here _before_ you turn into a grumpy pumpkin,” he teased, catching Keith’s gaze, “and the crowd has been thinning out for a bit now.”

“We can leave whenever you like, Lance. I’m fine either way.”

“Shiro? What did you put in these drinks? They are making Keith _fun_!”

“Alcohol, Lance,” laughed Shiro, “there’s alcohol in them.”

“It’s not the drinks! Can’t I just be in a good mood? My best friend just got married!”

“Yeah,” drawled Shiro, sarcasm dripping from every word, “that’s definitely what did it.”

“He means I’m the reason you are in a good mood, bri’ohm,” Lance added, trailing his fingers across the back of Keith’s neck and sending a shiver down his spine.

“Mmmhmm... yeah… I caught that,” Keith answered, tugging Lance closer, “he’s not wrong, bri’zuna.”

“Ohhhhkay. On that note, I’m gonna go find my groom. You guys just… yeah they aren’t listening… Bye guys!”

Distracted, they waved at Shiro and Lance mumbled something congratulatory. “You wanna get out of here? Find some privacy?”

“Yeah… that sounds like a great idea, Lance,” he answered, twisting so he could kiss him properly. Vaguely, he thought he heard Pidge or Matt hooting and there was definitely a wolf whistle, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Not when Lance was in his arms and kissing him back so sweetly. 

Lance laughed against his lips, pulling back. “I’ll grab the coats then. You flag down a cab?”

“Deal.” He tossed back the last of his drink and stood, catching Lance’s hand before he got too far. “I love you.”

“I know,” he answered, his smile going tender, “those eyes of yours speak volumes. Nice to hear it though. I’ll meet you at the exit.”

He nodded, watching for a moment as Lance melted into the crowd and made his way to the chairs with their jackets draped over them. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here, but he was damn glad he had. One thing was certain though, he reflected as he stared at the man he loved, the Cha Cha was now officially his favorite dance.

  
  



End file.
